LEADING 
EVENTS 2! 

WISCONSIN HISTORY 



THE STORY... 
OF THE STATE 



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HENRY E. LEGLEK 



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LEADING EVENTS 



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Wisconsin History 





The story of the State. 



By Henry E. Legler. 



Thb Sentinel Company, 

MiLWAUKEB, Wis. 
1898. 




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Copyright, 1898, by 

The Sentinel Company, 

Milwaukee, Wis. 






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CONTENTS. 



PART I. 
IN THE ERA OF BEGINNINGS. 

PAGE 

1. The Isle of Wisconsin 11 

2. The Builders of the Mounds 14 

3. Pre-Columbian Copper Minincj in Wisconsin 18 

4. The Red Men of Wisconsin 22 

5. Legendary Lore of Wisconsin Indians 29 

PART II. 
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE EXPLORERS. 

1. When Wisconsin Was Discovered 41 

2. The Strange Adventures of Radisson 47 

3. Rule of the Forest Ranger 52 

4. A Prince of Coureurs de Bois 56 

5. The Black Gowns and Their Wanderings 62 

6. Unsolved Mystery of Father Menard's Death ... 65 

7. Planting of the Jesuit Missions 67 

8. Solving the Great Western Mystery 71 

9. La Salle and His Companions 78 

10. Travelers in the Wilderness »0 

11. Friar Hennepin's Adventures 86 

PART III. 
UNDER FRENCH AND ENGLISH DOMINION. 

1. Firebrands of the West 91 

2. The Hill of the Dead 97 

3. Naming the Inland Waters 101 

4. Some Errors of Geography 105 

5. Under the Flag of England 107 

6. First Permanent Settlers of Wisconsin Ill 

7. Alexander Henry, the Fur Trader 118 

8. Captain Jonathan Carver, the Traveler 122 

9. During the War for Independence 126 

10. The Magna Charta of the Northwest 132 



Con tents — Continued . 



PART IV. 
PIONEER DAYS IN THE TERRITORY. 

PAGE 

1. First Settlements 137 

2. Village Life a Hundred Years Ago 141 

3. The Capture of Prairie du Chien 144 

4. Yankee Fur Traders in Wisconsin 152 

5. Red Bird's Uprising 157 

6. Life in the Diggings 165 

7. Black Hawk's War 172 

8. In the Days of the Territory ISl 

9. A Modern Utopia 189 

10. A Tragedy in the Capitol 196 

11. Strang's Stake of Zion at Voree 198 

12. The Migration From Over the Ocean 207 

PART V. 
FIFTY YEARS OF STATEHOOD. 

1. The Thirtieth Star in the Field of Blue 219 

2. Rescue of Joshua Glover, a Runaway Slave .... 226 

3. On the Verge of Civil War 230 

4. Birth of the Republican Party in Wisconsin .... 234 

5. Strange Story of a Spurious Lost Prince 235 

6. Mob Law as a Political Factor 242 

7. The Tocsin of War 244 

8. On the Field of Battle 258 

9. Lieut. Cushing's Deed of Heroism /?62 

10. A Dam That Saved a Flotilla 269 

11. Wisconsin's Part in the Capture of Jeff Davis . . . 271 

12. Escape of Wisconsin Officers From Libby Prison . . 276 

13. After the War — Events of Three Decades 280 

14. In the Realm of Politics 289 

15. May Riots of '86 .301 

16. The Great Boom on the Gogebic 310 

17. A. D. 1897 317 



ILLUSTRATIONS AND PORTRAITS. 



PAGE 

Isle Wisconsin 10 

Man-Shaped Mound near Baraboo 12 

Elephant Mound in Grant County . 13 

Typical Group of EfEgy Mounds 15 

Tambourine Drum used by Menomonee Indians 17 , 

Medicine Drum and Stick 19 

Indian Juggler's Rattle 21 

Indian Chant 23 

Birchbark Vessel for Maple Sap 2G 

Indian Reservations in Wisconsin 28 

Ancient Hunting Grounds of the Tribes 28 

Indian Women Gathering Wild Rice 31 

An Ojibwa Family Record 35 

Samuel de Champlain, Governor of New France 43 

Earliest Map of the Wisconsin Region 44 

French Carry-all 45 

French Voyageur , 48 

Head of Cow Moose 50 

French Pony Cart 51 

Coureurs de Bois Carousing 53 

Plow Used a Hundred Years ago 55 

Perrot's Silver Monstrance 57 

Father Menard's Autograph 58 

Wooden Anchor of the Voyageurs 60 

Autograph of Father Allouez 61 

Statue of Pere Marquette 63 

Old Church on Madaline Island 64 

Joliet's Autograph 66 

Marquette's Autograph 70 

First Vessel Built on the Lakes 72 

Tonty's Autograph 75 

Hennepin's Drawing of a Wisconsin Buffalo 81 

The Fox-Wisconsin Portage 90 

Langlade's Royal Commission y2 

Scene of a French and Indian Battle 96 

Modern View of the Hill of the Dead 98 

Oldest Building in Wisconsin 108 

Signatures to Carver's Famous Deed 110 

Pauquette Making a Portage 112 

Kaukauna Deed Signatures 115 

First Paper Money Circulated in Wisconsin 117 

Ramsey Crooks , 119 

Prairie du Chien in 1835 121 

Captain Jonathan Carver 121 

The Little Drummer and the Large Sergeant 129 

Langlade's Indians and the Spoils of War 131 

Claims of the Colonies to the Northwest 133 



Illustrations and Portraits — Continued. 



PAGH 

Fort Winnebago in 1831 134 

Ruins of Fort Crawford 134 

Fort Howard in 1851 134 

Gov. Dodge as a Young Man 13G 

Augustin Grignon 143 

Lewis Cass 146 

Ebenezer Brigham 153 

Black Hawk War Relics 158 

Black Sparrow Hawk 162 

First Norwegian Church in Wisconsin 164 

Zachary Taylor 169 

First Newspaper OfRce in Wisconsin 171 

Scene at Bad Ax 176 

Territorial Seals 182 

Madison in 1836 186 

Phalanx Long House at Ripon 190 

Gov. Doty's House at Shantytown 193 

Wisconsin's First Capitol 196 

King Strang 199 

One of the Voree Plates 203 

Strang's Castle 205 

Carl Schurz 208 

James G. Percival 209 

Original Mitchell Bank Building 212 

Pioneer Milwaukee Brewery 215 

Seals of the State 218 

Nelson Dewey, First Governor 220 

Leonard J. Farwell, Second Governor 222 

Senator Isaac P. Walker 225 

Sherman M. Booth 227 

Byron Paine 229 

Gov. William A. Barstow 231 

Gov. Coles Bashford 232 

E. G. Ryan 233 

Eleazer Williams as a Young Man 23G 

Bleazer Williams in Priestly Garb 238 

Jourdain Residence at Green Bay 210 

Gen. Rufus King ' 243 

Gov. Edward Salomon 245 

L P. Harvey, First War Governor 247 

Mrs. Cordelia Harvey 251 

J. H. Tweedy 25? 

Old Abe, Wisconsin's War Eagle 255 

Commander W. B. Cushing, U. S. A 263 

Jefferson Davis as a Young Man in Wisconsin 272 

A War-Time Handbill 274 

Gen. Harrison C. Hobart 277 

Gen. Lucius Fairchild 28!i 

The Little Red Schoolhouse 290 

Gov. William Dempster Hoard 293 

Paul Grottkau. Socialist Leader 302 

Robert Schilling, Labor Leader ^^*' 

Map of the Gogebic Ore Vein ^12 

Cabinet Members from Wisconsin 316 



PRELIMINARY. 



Glancing back to the beginnings of Wisconsin, there pass in 
panoramic review the picturesque first comers, the hardy French 
coureurs de bois and blaclt-robed Jesuit priests; the palisaded huts 
of logs, wherein dwelt the fur traders and the soldiers; the bark 
chapels wherein priests sought to win heathen savages to Christian 
faith, even at the expense of their own lives; the great buffalo hunts 
participated in by the red men and their white companions; the dis- 
covery of the upper Mississippi by Father Marquette and Louis 
Joliet, at Prairie du Chien; the coming to Green Bay of the first ves- 
sel that sailed these lakes and the tragic fate of its crew; the great 
wars of extermination against the Fox Indians, and the thrilling 
story of the Hill of the Dead; the uprising of Red Bird, and later 
the Black Hawk war; the episodes of border life at the forts; the lead 
mine fever in Southwestern Wisconsin, that, like the gold excite- 
ment of California, brought in its train a motley crowd of gamblers, 
thieves and other adventurers, as well as men who sought fortune by 
delving for the ore; the establishment of negro slavery in Wiscon- 
sin, in strange contrast to the stirring part later taken by its citi- 
zens in the eradication of this blot upon civilization; the exciting in- 
cidents connected with the locating of the capitol; the shooting of 
Arndt in the legislature; the experiment of the Wisconsin phalanx, 
much like the more celebrated Brook Farm experiment; the strange 
career of King Strang, who led a band of Wisconsin Mormons from 
Racine county to an island in Lake Michigan, where he founded a 
kingdom with all the accessories of royalty; the coming of the na- 
tions—the Germans, the Irish, the Swiss, the Belgians, the Dutch, 
the Poles, and the characteristic communities they have planted on 
the soil of Wisconsin; the call to arms and the response of the loyal 
citizens; the days of statehood, with their development of commer- 
cial, social and political life; the struggles of the self-made men who 
aided in building up this commonwealth. 

The chapters which follow tell the story of the state in its sali- 
ent features; having been written for newspaper publication, the aim 
has been to make each installment as nearly complete in itself as 
the condensed form would permit. While events have beeen grouped 
for the sake of comprehensive presentation, chronological order has 
been observed as nearly as possible. 

In the gathering of the data, more than a thousand books and 
nearly as many pamphlets and newspaper files bearing more or less 



"viii Preliminary. 

•directly upon the subject, were consulted. These included narra- 
tives of the early French and English travelers, local histories, 
•monographs, magazine articles, newspaper accounts and interviews, 
and some manuscripts. The treasures of the splendid collection 
amassed at Madison by the State Historical society were kindly 
placed at the disposal of the writer. I am also greatly indebted to 
Benjamin Suite, Esq., the leading historian of Canada, for friendly 
and valuable aid, all his manuscript notes and monographs bearing 
upon the history of the Wisconsin region during the French regime 
having been generously placed at my disposal, without reserve. 

Whatever errors of omission, as well as commission, may be at- 
tributed to the history — and there are doubtless both — the writer has 
conscientiously endeavored to sift the great mass of material so as 
to bring into relief those events which are conspicuous either by 
reason of their picturesque character or because they have exercised 
a potent influence in shaping the destinies of the commonwealth. 
There has been an earnest effort to state facts accurately, and in the 
narrative of the later period, no pains have been spared to verify 
statements by means of correspondence with men who witnessed or 
participated in the events described, and by examination of all docu- 
mentary evidence available. The writer disclaims any attempt at a 
critical history, or a desire to give judgment respecting episodes 
about which differences of opinion may be honestly entertained. The 
primary purpose has been to give a fair presentation of the leading 
events that have made the history of Wisconsin unique as to their 
romantic or picturesque character and important as to their general 
bearing. Beginning with the travels and adventures of the early 
travelers and continuing through the later period, the narrative has 
been told, as nearly as circumstances and space would permit, in the 
words of actual participants, in order to better reflect the spirit of 
the times and the character of the people who have graven the his- 
tory of Wisconsin. 

Two features of Wisconsin's history have not been given the 
prominence which their importance warrants: The military history 
of Wisconsin has been so fully told in books specially dealing with 
the state's part in the Civil war that reference thereto has been con- 
fined to the most conspicuous exploits, regimental and individual. 
The state's political history has been touched upon but briefly; its 
narration in detail being beyond the scope of this book. 



PART L 



IN THE ERA OF BEGINNINGS. 







T3aj-n trou 












5, Z [. 



ISLE WISCONSIN. 
Hypothetical Map of Land in the Trenton Period. 



LEADING EVENTS OF WISCONSIN HISTORY. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE ISLE OF WISCONSIN. 

As SCIENTISTS are enabled by putting together a few scattered 
bones upturned by the plowshare to tell the sEape and habits of ani- 
mals long since extinct, so geologists can ti'ace from the rocks they 
break with their hammers the history of the land. Thus they as- 
sei't, with positiveness, that ages ago the area that is now the north- 
central portion of the state and upper peninsula of Michigan was an 
island of great altitude. They trace the physical history of Wiscon- 
sin back even to a state of complete submergence beneath the waters 
of the ancient ocean. 

"Let an extensive but shallow sea, covering the whole of the 
present territory of the state, be pictured to the mind," suggests the 
eminent Wisconsin geologist, T. C. Chamberlin, "and let it be imag- 
ined to be depositing mud and sand, as at the present day. The 
thickness of the sediment that accumulated in that early period was 
immense, being measured by thousands of feet. In the progress of 
time an enormous pressure, attended by heat, was brought to bear 
upon them laterally, or edgewise, by which they were folded and 
crumpled and forced out of the water, giving rise to an island — the 
nucleus of Wisconsin. The force which produced this upheaval is 
believed to have arisen from the cooling and consequent contraction 
of the globe. The foldings may be imaged as the wrinkles of a 
shrinking earth." 

When this island rose from the wide waste of waters that cov- 
ered all the land, the climate was tropical. Rain fell in abundance, 
and soon the incessant showers that poured down began to disinte- 
grate the soil on top. and the beating waves of the ocean all around 
crumbled the sides without cessation. This process of erosion, con- 
tinued through unnumbered ages, began to plane the mountainous 
Island, the rains washing down the sediment till the vast accumula- 
tions piled above the waters on every side and added to the area. 
Thus as the altitude of this island was cut down, its area expanded. 
Soon little outlying islands or reefs were formed that in time be- 
came attached to the parent isle. 

During the process of ages there occurred numerous eruptions. 
The crust of the earth, yielding to the tremendous pressure from 

11 



12 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



beneath, became fissured, and immense masses of molten rock pene- 
trated, bearing with, them the mineral ingredients which later chemi- 
cal processes have converted into those deposits that have yielded 
vast riches to their finders. Thus by continued upheavals and ero- 
sions the surface and the length and breadth of this ancient island of 
Wisconsin was subjected to incessant change. 

The first mineral formations were doubtless what are known as 
the iron-bearing series, the most conspicuous development being the 
Penokee iron range in Ashland county. At the same time there rose 




Man-Shaped Mound. 
(Near Baraboo.) 

from the waters the Baraboo quartzite ranges, which formed a group 
of small islands where now Sauk county appears on the map ot tne 
United States. 

After the great upheavals that resulted in deposits of iron and 
copper, and accumulations of sandstone miles in thickness, came a 
great period of erosion. To the disintegrations thus washed into the 
water were added immense accumulations of myriad millions of the 
remains of marine life. In the words of Prof. Chamberlin, "abun- 
dant life swarmed in the ocean, and the sands became the great 
cemetery of the dead." The casts of numerous trilobites found in 
this state are relics of this age. 



The Story of the State. 



13 



Immense beds of sandstone, with layers of limestone and .'liiale, 
were formed. The waters acting on the copper and iron of the 
Lake Superior region gave the sandstone deposits there its tint of 
red. On the southern end of the island the sandstones lacked this 
element and they are to this day light colored. 

As the sand accumulations added to the island along its south- 
eastern front, the oceanic conditions massed great quantities of 
galena ore with the limestone there formed. Here later, in what are 
now Grant, Lafayette and Iowa counties, and extending into Illinois, 
were developed the lead mines that became the scene of a great min- 
ing excitement early in this century. 

When the period of iron deposits and limestone formations was 
drawing to a close, coral reefs rose above the surface, similar in 
their characteristics to those that form the atolls of to-day. With 
these tiny animals were associated the mollusks that have been 




r,/|n)ri'rmlii7- 

Elefhant Mound in Grant County. 



called "the oyster of the Siluiian seas." Then came the deposits on 
the southeast, in a limited area, that have produced the valuable 
cement beds along Milwaukee river. 

Next came the great ice age. One monster stream of ice plowed 
along the eastern edge and hollowed the bed of Lake Michigan; an- 
other scooped out Lake Superior and penetrated into Minnesota, 
while between these prodigious prongs of ice one of lesser size bored 
its way along Green Bay and down the valley of the Fox. 

When warmer days came the monster glaciers melted. The ice 
became water and filled numerous depressions scooped out in the 
irresistible progress of the vast masses. Thus were formed the two 
thousand and more lakes that make of Wisconsin a summer para- 
dise. The warmth that melted the ice to water also brought forth 
vegetation to cover the nakedness of the land, the forests grew, and 
"man came upon the scene." 



CHAPTER II. 

THE BUILDERS OF THE MOUNDS. 

Who were the first dwellers on the soil that is now known as 
Wisconsin? 

For many years it was believed that an ancient race conversant 
with the arts of civilization inhabited the land; that finally the bar- 
barous precursors of the Indians came like the locusts of Egypt and 
drove the ancient people southward, never to return; that this lost 
tribe of men were the progenitors of the Aztecs, now extinct, and 
that the evidence of their existence here is to be found in the many 
defensive and sepulchral mounds that once dotted this state, and in 
the abandoned workings of the Lake Superior copper region. 

For many years scientists tenaciously held this view, but patient 
investigators have finally traced the construction of the tumuli to 
Indian origin. Artificial mounds have been found in great numbers 
In the Mississippi river valley, but Wisconsin has proved especially 
rich in these antiquities. It has been estimated that not less than 
10,000 mounds once existed in this state. Many of these have dis- 
appeared under the leveling influences of the plow, and even the 
remarkable earthworks at Aztalan, in Jefferson county, have been 
partly obliterated by a tiller of the soil who preferred a crop of corn 
to a site of historic interest. 

Many of the mounds in Wisconsin possess a rare interest in that 
they are fashioned in the form of animals. Except in a few isolated 
localities in neighboring states, tumuli of the class known as effigy 
mounds are found in Wisconsin only. The favorite types seemed 
to be the lizard, the turtle, the buffalo, the squirrel and a winged 
form that might be likened to a bird. One of the remarkable animal 
mounds, found in Grant county, was for a long time supposed to rep- 
resent a mammoth, and the circumstance strengthened the argument 
that a prehistoric race from another continent once dwelt here. As 
the hairy mammoth, the prototype of the elephant, was not known 
to have existed on this continent, it seemed plausible that the an- 
cient men fashioned a mound recalling one of the animals of the 
land whence they originally migrated. Since it has been established 
that Indians built the mounds, the theory has obtained that this 
elephant form was designed to represent a buffalo, and that a land- 
slide lengthened the snout into resemblance of an elephant's pro- 
boscis. The measurements of this large effigy mound were ascer- 
tained to be as follows: Total length, 135 feet; across the body, 36 
feet; from end of proboscis to forelegs, 39 feet. 

This interesting relic of the past has nearly disappeared under the 
obliterating process of the agriculturist. 

14 



The Stori/ of the State. 



15 



Most curious of all the mound structures was the "ancient city 
of Aztalan," as the supposed fortifications in Jefferson county have 
been called. This ancient enclosure, the only one of its kind in 
Wisconsin, was for a long time believed to have been a citadel, but 
Increase A. Lapham's investigations established the fact that it was 
Intended, not for defense, but for the performance of sacred rites and 
for burial. The ancient city was discovered just sixty years ago, 
and has often been referred to as one of the wonders of the Western 
world. Its discoverer gave it its name, suggesting its occupancy by 
the old Aztecs. Early writers described the works as a fortress, 
with bastions or buttresses at nearly regular distances. As the earth 




Group of Effigy Mounds Peculiar to Wisconsin. 
1. Squirrel Mound, Mendota. 2. Bear Mound, English Prairie. 3. Deer Mound, 
near Madison. 4. Bird Mound, Lake Wingra. 5. Turtle Mound, Waukesha. 
6. Frog Mound, Wisconsin River. 7. War Club Mound, Mayville. 



near the top was burned and the reddish clay bore impressions of 
straw, it was supposed that the walls were built of brick. An ex- 
haustive examination showed, however, that the banks are of earth, 
the mixture of wild hay and burned clay extending but a short dis- 
tance below the surface, and that the so-called bricks bore no regu- 
lar form. The projecting mounds, which some antiquarians assumed 
to be bastions of a fort or citadel, were found to be sepulchres. A 
cavity was found wherein two bodies had been interred in a sitting 
posture. There were also found numerous fragments of earthen- 
ware, portions of broken vessels varying in size from a few inches 
to three feet across the rim. The relics unearthed by antiquarians 



16 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

have been carried to all parts of the world, for many men of science 
have used the spade among these mounds during the last half cen- 
tury. 

Many plausible arguments have been advanced in support of the 
theory that here was a citadel to which the mound builders repaired 
when threatened — the buttresses or bastions at regular intervals, the 
watch towers and the outworks, the strategic location along the 
Rock river, giving the besieged access to water, all conveyed the 
impression that the enclosure was designed for a military fortifica- 
tion. This theory is exploded by Lapham's observation that "the 
fort is entirely commanded from the summit of a ridge extending 
along the west side parallel with and much higher than the west 
walls themselves, and within fair arrow shot; so that an enemy 
posted on it would have a decided advantage over those within the 
defense." 

It is the conclusion of Lapham that this was a place of worship; 
"the pyramidal mounds being the place of sacrifice, like the teocalli 
of Mexico. From its isolated situation^there being no other similar 
structure for a great distance in any direction — it may be conjec- 
tured that this was a kind of Mecca to which a periodical pilgrimage 
was prescribed by their religion. Here may have been the great 
annual feasts and sacrifices of a whole nation. Thousands of per- 
<4ons from remote locations may have engaged in midnight cere- 
monies conducted by the priests. The temple, lighted by fires 
kindled on the great pyramids and at every projection on the walla, 
on such occasions would have presented an imposing spectacle, well 
calculated to impress the minds of the people with awe and solemn- 
ity. That these works were designed for some such uses seems quite 
probable." 

The total length of the wall constituting the enclosure, when 
the measurement was first taken, was 2,750 feet, the ridge being 
about twenty-two feet wide. At regular intervals, on the outside, 
were the mounas which descriptive writers have called bastions of 
the fort. These were about eighty feet apart, and about forty 
feet in diameter. 

It was a matter of dispute for a long time whether some of the 
eflBgy mounds were modeled after the human form. Some antiqua- 
rians contended that the mounds were so designed, others that the 
form of a bird was intended. It must be conceded that many of the 
mounds which were so described as man-shaped bore little resem- 
blance to the human form divine. It was not till 1859 that convincing 
proof was obtained that the ancient sculptors of earth sought to 
model the human form. In that year there was found near Baraboo, 
in Sauk county, an earthwork that was unmistakably formed like a 
man. It was a huge figure, measuring fully two hundred and four- 
teen feet, with a head thirty feet in length, body one hundred and 
legs eighty-four feet long. The lines were graceful, this verdure- 



The Story of the State. 



17 



clad giant being in position of walking towards the West. While 
the variouB members were somewhat disproportionate, there was no 
mistaking the general form. 

Other man-shaped mounds have since been found, but none so 
perfect in its outlines. 

It is a curious fact that the flourishing cities of to-day are most- 
ly where once were the chief gathering places of the Indians, and 
that the old Indian trails were almost identical with the stage routes 
that succeeded them. Ic was not all coincidence that led to the 




Tambourine Drum. 

choice of identical centers of population and routes of travel, for 
the natural geographical advantages largely determined this selec- 
tion for the red men, as well as the white men. Tracing the analogy 
to prehistoric times, the same facts hold true. Milwaukee, Madison, 
Beloit, Waukesha, Fort Atkinson, Pewaukee, Sheboygan, Racine, 
Manitowoc, Prairie du Chien and many other cities in the southern 
half of the state are located where the presence of numerous emble- 
matic mounds show that prehistoric villages once existed, for these 
mounds have been located usually on the natural lines of travel, and 
the places where groups of them have been found, show evidences of 
earlier occupation by considerable numbers of people. 



CHAPTER III. 

PRE-COLUMBIAN COPPER MINING IN WISCONSIN. 

Most curious of all the ancient implements unearthed in Wis- 
consin are specimens of unalloyed copper — the most rare of all 
archaeological findings. When it became known that Wisconsin's 
soil contained more of these relics of pre-Columbian copper mining 
in North America than any other region known, much attention was 
attracted to the discoveries made here. At the Centennial exposi- 
tion, twenty years ago, the whole number of copper implements ex- 
hibited was 210. Of these 164 came from Wisconsin. The rarity of 
such specimens previous to the Wisconsin finds may be judged from 
the fact that the only European museum at that time known to pos- 
sess copper tools was the Royal Academy at Dublin, and the few 
specimens there came from India. 

The Wisconsin coppers comprise a variety of implements. Many 
of them are spear and arrow heads, marked with dents to represent 
the number of beasts or men killed by the weapon; some are knives, 
chisels, adzes and other tools; a number are axes, weighing as much 
as four and a half pounds. The heaviest copper specimen ever un- 
earthed is a Wisconsin ax, whose weight is nearly five pounds. 

Like the ancient mounds, the origin of Wisconsin's copper im- 
plements has become a fruitful source of learned controversy. Those 
who have maintained that copper implements were the handiwork of 
a pre-Indian race, have argued that Indian ingenuity never reached 
such development as is exhibited in their manufacture; moreover, 
that when white men first came among Wisconsin Indians, their 
tools and arrow heads were made of flint and not of metal — showing 
that copper mining was an art unknown to Indians. 

In the written accounts of some of the early French voyageurs 
In this region, which have been preserved in the archives at Paris, 
there is no reference to the use of copper tools, though the knowl- 
edge of the metal, which the Indians of that period regarded as a 
Bacred gift, not as an article of utility, is mentioned. In 1660 Claude 
Allouez, founder of the first Catholic mission in Wisconsin, wrote: 
"I have seen in the hands of the savages pieces of copper weighing 
from ten to twenty pounds. They esteem them as divinities or as 
presents made them by the gods." 

Writing of the Wisconsin Indians after his journey from Green 
Bay past the site of the future city of Milwaukee, two hundred and 
fifteen years ago, Robert de La Salle noted that "the extremity of 
their arrows is armed with a sharp stone or the tooth of some animal, 
Instead of iron. Their buffalo arrow is nothing else but a stone or 
bone, or sometimes a piece of very hard wood." 

18 



The Story of the State. 19 

Father Louis Hennepin, who was faithful in his description of 
Indian customs, though inclined to exaggerate v/hen narrating his 
own wonderful deeds, tells in his history that the Indians instead of 
hatches and knives utilized sharp stones, and instead of awls used 
sharp hones. 





MEDICINE DRUM AND STICK. 
FROM THE FIFTEENTH ANNUAL, BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY REPORT. 

(Used by Menomonee Indians. The drum contsiins water, and the hollow rever- 
beration of the drum-beat can be heard a mile di.stant.) 

A later writer was the French historian Charlevoix. He visited 
these parts about 1720, and described the Indian hatchets of flint, 
which were the only implements used in felling trees. 

"To fix them in the handle," he said, "they cut off the head of a 
young tree and make a notch in it, in which they thrust the head of 
the hatchet. After some time the tree, by growing together, keeps 



20 Leading Events of WiscoU'Sm History. 

the hatohet so fixed that it cannot come out. They then cut tne 
tree to such a length as they would have the handle. Both the ar- 
rows and javelins are armed with a point of bone wrought in differ- 
ent shapes." 

The venerable Dr. J. D. Butler of Madison learnedly contended 
for many years that the copper implements found in Wisconsin show 
evidences of having been cast in moulds, some of them showing the 
mould marks where the halves of the form-flask united. 

The scoffers at the theory of a pre-historic metallurgy have 
argued as strongly on the other side. Dr. P. R. Hoy of Racine, ex- 
president of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, declared that the 
■copper miners of the Lake Superior region did not employ a smelt- 
ing process in fashioning their implements. 

"Copper is a refractory metal," he said. "It melts at from 2,200 
to 2,600 degrees, a temperature that can be reached only in a furnace 
assisted by some form of coal and an artificial blast. We must have 
good evidence before we assert that these dwellers by the lake pos- 
sessed these indispensable auxiliaries to successful working in 
metals. Besides, in casting copper, it is positively necessary to put 
the materials in a crucible. The manufacture of good crucibles, such 
as will withstand the heat necessary to melt the more refractory 
metals, involves such a degree of knowledge that for many genera- 
.tions the entire civilized world was dependent on a small section of 
Germany." 

Dr. Hoy called attention to the fact that a majority of the cop- 
per implements found in Wisconsin have specks or points of pure 
silver scattered over them. The best authorities say that a single 
speck of pure silver, visible even with the microscope, is positive 
evidence that the specimen was never melted. 

It was the theory of Dr. Hoy that the specimens were hammered 
Into shape, and not smelted. This is his explanation: 

"These ancient Indians, for, I believe, they were Indians, used nre 
in their mining operations. The vein rock was made hot by build- 
ing a fire on or against it; then, by dashing on water, the rock 
would not only be fractured, but the exposed pieces of copper be 
softened, so that it could be beaten into shape. Then the metal be- 
came hard, in consequence of its being pounded; it was again heated 
and plunged into cold water — for copper is in this respect the op- 
posite of steel; the one is softened, while the other is rendered hard. 
In this way copper was fashioned simply by pounding." 

The Lake Superior copper region affords the most remarkable oc- 
currence of native copper in the world. The old miners, whether 
they were Indians or Aztecs, worked mines superficially only. Isle 
Royale is honey-combed with the ancient diggings. In this island 
an interesting relic was found by an archaeologist, Henry Oilman. 
In cleaning out the debris from a pit he came upon a crescent- 
shaped mass of metal, weighing 5,720 pounds. 



The Story of the State. 21 

"Such a huge mass," says he in a description of his find, "was 
evidently beyond the ability of those ancient men to remove. Thoy 
could only deal with it as best they knew how. Large quantities of 
ashes and charcoal lying round it show that the action of fire had 
been brought to bear on it. A great number of stone hammers or 
mauls were also found near by, many of them fractured from use. In- 
numerable fragments of copper chips lay strewn on all sides, and 
even the scales of fish, evidently the remnants of the meals of the 
miners." 

The trend of modern investigation dispels the theory of pre- 
historic mining operations. It establishes the fact that the Indians 
were the so-called miners, and that when the white men came among 
them the laborious process of securing the metal was abandoned 
because they could more easily obtain hatchets and knives by bar- 
tering their furs. 




Indian Juggler's Rattle. 
(Employed by Menomonee Medicine Men to Exorcise Evil Spirits.) 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE RED MEN OF WISCONSIN. 

Early comers to Wisconsin found the islands of Green Bay in- 
habited by the Pottawattomie Indians. Crossing the eighteen miles of 
water, there was reached the chief village of the Menomonees, or, as 
the French called them, the Wild Rice Eaters. Their wigwams 
clustered at the mouth of the river bearing their name. At the head 
of the bay were the Winnebago Indians, the "Men of the Sea," whom 
Nicolet sought in 1634 under the erroneous impression that they 
were Chinamen; following the Fox river, next were encountered the 
Mascoutens, known as the Fire Nation; adjacent were the warlike 
Sacs and Foxes. Along the shore of Lake Superior dwelt the Ojib- 
was, now better known as the Chippewas; to the southwest of thf^m, 
on the St. Croix, were straggling bands of the Sioux, whose main 
body was on the opposite side of the Mississippi river. In the south- 
western part of v/hat is now the state of Wisconsin were the Kicka- 
poos. 

These are the chief tribes of red men that figure in the early 
history of Wisconsin. They represented two great linguistic stocks 
of Indians — the Algonkin and the Dakotan. Here on Wisconsin 
soil the two powerful confederacies first came in contact. Indian 
boundaries were never well defined, and thus the hunting grounds 
claimed by these various tribes were subject to incessant shiftlngs. 
There seems to have been little conflict between the Winnebagoes, 
who are of Dakotan extraction, and their Algonkin neighbors; but 
between the Chippewas and the Sioux hostilities were incessant, and 
bloody wars frequent over boundary disputes. 

The Indians of Wisconsin have played an important part in the 
history of the nation. The Fox Indians, at first staunch allies of the 
French, later became their inveterate foes, and contributed to that 
series of events which ended in the fall of New France. On the 
plains of Abraham, Charles de Langlade, Wisconsin's first perma- 
nent white settler, led another band of Wisconsin Indians against 
the forces of Wolfe. Again, on that fatal day when Gen. Braddock's 
English forces were nearly annihilated and George Washington es- 
tablished his reputation as a soldier, Wisconsin Indians under the 
same leader aided in the dreadful slaughter; in their lodges in Wis- 
consin for many a day hung the scalps of these soldiers of England. 

In the Revolutionary war and in the war at the beginning of 
this century (1812) the Indians of Wisconsin sided with the red coats 
against the American colonists. In the bloody battles in Ohio, Wis- 
consin Indians shed many a frontiersman's blood. When George 
Rogers Clark conquered the Northwest with his handful of "Long 

22 



The Story of the State. 23 

Knives," Wisconsin Indians were among the allies of the British 
with whom he had to contend. 

The Black Hawk war was carried on by the Fox and Sac Indians 
after their migration into Illinois, but the decisive battles were 
fought on Wisconsin soil. Wisconsin Winnebagoes were the captors 
of the Sac chieftain after the slaughter of his tribe at Bad Axe. 

How numerous the Indians were before white men came among 
them it is only possible to approximate. When it is considered 
that the entire Indian population of the United States did not at any 
time exceed half a million, or about one-fourth the total number of 
inhabitants that Wisconsin alone has to-day, it can be readily sur- 
mised that the forests and prairies of Wisconsin were but sparsely 
populated. It has been approximated that the number was never in 
•excess of 15,000 to 20,000. Indian nomadic life could not prove con- 



J. 2. 

tr.^l tfy^ I tr^ 



»^ ^' w tr^ tr^y. f/vw 



INDIAN Chant. 



ducive to large families. Wisconsin Indians moved with the sea- 
sons, following game or seeking the ground best adapted for grow- 
ing corn. In the places where water and fish were accessible and 
where grain and root crops flourished most, they pitched their 
wigwams; in these places the toiling priests came to them, and in 
these places have been built the principal cities of the state. 

In most respects the life of Wisconsin Indians did not differ ma- 
terially from that of other Indians of allied tribes. Game was abun- 
dant and included many animals which are now extinct or to be 
found only in the far West. On the prairies in the western part of 
the state roamed great herds of buffalo. Bear, elk, moose, antelope 
and even the woodland caribou were the prey of the hunter, and 
the waters fairly teemed with fish. 

In the days of the aborigines there was ordinarily no struggle 
for the necessities of life, for wants were few and easily supplied. 



24 Leading Events of Wiscotisin History. 

The arrow that brought food to the lodge also furnished furs for 
clothing and for covering the tepee. Wild berries grew in abun- 
dance, and the sap of the sugar maple furnished a palatable luxury. 
The men employed their time in hunting and fishing, and in making 
war; the patient squaws gathered the corn and without a murmur 
served as beasts of burden for the lodge and camp. In their un- 
derground caches were stored grains and other food for winter use. 

Despite the prodigality of nature, it sometimes happened that 
during the long winter months food became exhausted and that the 
severity of the season prevented the hunters from chasing their 
game to quarry. Then famine stalked through the camp and 
thinned their ranks. Often, too, the dreaded smallpox swept through 
the tents, and the incantation of the medicine man was powerless 
to stop the pestilence. Two venturesome Frenchmen, Radisson and 
Groseilliers, who wintered with the Ojibwas in 1661-62, at Chequa- 
megon Bay, experienced a bitter famine with these Indians. They 
lived on the bark of trees, old beaver skins and other indigestible 
provender till the spring came and game could be secured. 

"We became the very image of death," wrote Radisson in his 
journal. 

Five hundred of the Indians died of starvation that winter. 

Most of the Indian tribes are known by the name which Euro- 
peans have given them. The principal tribes of Wisconsin redmen 
have been known by many different names, those given below being 
chiefly used: 

' Menomonees — Folles Avoines, ^YiId Rice Eaters, Malhomines. 

Chippewas — Sateurs, Ojibwas, Ontehibouse. 

Foxes— Reynards, Outagamies, MusQuakis. 

Sacs — Osaukies, Sauks, Sakis. 

Winnebagoes— Puans, Puants, Nadouessi, Stinkards, Ochunkoraws, Ho- 
tanke. Bay Indians, Hojiras. 

Sioux — Nadowesioux, Dacotahs. 

Pottawattamies — Poueatamis, Powtewatamis, Pautawattamies. 

JIaseoutens Assistaeronous, Gens de Feur, Fire Nation. 

Kickapoos — Kikapus, Kikapoux, Quicapous. 

In addition to these tribes, wandering bands of Miamis, Illinois, 
Towas and other tribes and sub-tribes of the neighboring states have 
at various times located in Wisconsin. When in 1648 the fierce Iro- 
quois ravaged the country of the Hurons with pestilential fury, fugi- 
tives of this tribe and of the harried Ottawas found shelter in the 
forest fastness of Wisconsin. Even to these remote regions did the 
fury of the Eastern savages sometimes pursue them. 

The Menomonees are the only original inhabitants of Wisconsin 
who still make their home here. They are a well-favored race, and 
attracted the attention of the first Frenchmen because their com- 
plexions were several shades lighter than that of their neighbors. 
This peculiarity was attributed to the use of wild rice, or oats, as a 
staple article of food. Vast stretches of river bottoms, acres upon, 
acres In extent, were covered with this wild rice and furnished them 



The Story of the State. 25 

with an abundance of food. The gathering of the harvest in Sep- 
tember, by the squaws, has been thus described: 

"The harvesters went in their canoes across watery fields, shak- 
ing the ears right and left as they advanced, the grain falling easily, 
if ripe, into the bark receptacle beneath. To clear it from chaff and 
strip it of a pellicle inclosing it, they put it to dry on a wooden lat- 
tice above a small fire, which was kept burning for several days. 
When the rice was well dried, it was placed in a skin of the form af 
a bag, which was then forced into a hole, made on purpose, in the 
ground. Then they tread it out so long and so well that the grain, 
being freed from the chaff, was easily winnowed. After this it was 
pounded to meal, or left unpounded and boiled in water seasoned 
with grease. It thus became a very palatable diet." 

Tradition taught the Menomonees to believe that once they 
were animals or birds, and that their transformation into human 
beings occurred at the mouth of the Menomonee river, at Marinette. 
When one of them dies a picture is painted on a board representing 
the animal from which the deceased is supposed to have derived his 
descent, and this is placed at the head of his grave. One of their 
superstitions is that a fabulous fowl which they term "the thuuder- 
bird" hovers over the clouds, causing lightning by winking its eyes 
and thunder by flapping its wings. This superstition is shared by 
other Algonkin tribes. 

Since the coming of white men, the Mascoutens, the Fire Nation, 
have disappeared from the face of the earth. They originally came 
to Wisconsin from the East as the result of a war with the Eries. 
Father Marquette found them on the Wisconsin river in a palisaded 
village, in 1673. Father Allouez records a visit some years before 
that date. It is believed that after they became reduced in num- 
bers the remnant was absorbed by the neighboring Kickapoos. At 
any rate, no trace of them has been found since the Revolutionary 
war. 

The Kickapoos were claimed by the Shawnees as a part of 
their tribe. They occupied a number of villages on the Wisconsin 
river. In 1754, with the Sioux and Pottawattomieis, they waged war 
against the Peorias of Illinois. Many years ago their migratory 
spirit led them southward, where they joined the Creeks. 

Mystery for a long time clouded the origin of the Winnebagoes. 
They had a tradition that their ancestors had migrated from a great 
distance, a region near the salt sea. It is now established that they 
are an off-shoot of the Siouan nation. These Indians have occupied 
a large place in the history of Wisconsin, from the time that Nicolet 
came to them as an ambassador from New France. Their name sig- 
nifies "fetid," a term applied by Indians to salt water. The French 
translated this term in another sense, and called them Puants, or 
Stinkards. This name led certain writers to assume that it had 
been given them on account of filthy habits. The modern Winne- 



26 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



bago is not inaptly so named, for he is "the poorest, meanest and 
most ill-visaged of Wisconsin Indians"; two centuries ago the Win- 
nebagoes were warlike and possessed remarkable physical power. 

When the celebrated traveler, Capt. Jonathan Carver, visited 
these parts in 1766, he found a queen reigning over the Winneba- 
goes. The name of this remarkable Winnebago queen was Glory of 
the Morning. She was the widow of a Frenchman who was mortally 
wounded at Quebec. Her home was on Doty's island, in a palisaded 
town of fifty houses. Plums, grapes and other fruit grew there spon- 
taneously and the Indians raised great quantities of Indian corn, 
beans, pumpkins, watermelons and tobacco. The Indian queen en- 
tertained Carver right royally for four days. 

Greatest of Wisconsin hunters were the lithe-limbed Chippewas. 
They called themselves Ojibwas, or Leapers, meaning people at the 




EiRCHBARK Vessel for :maple Sap. 
(Used by Wisconsin Indians.) 



leaping water, or falls. They were found by the Jesuits in 1641 at 
the outlet of Lake Superior. Pursued by the Iroquois westward, 
they took refuge on the southern shore of Lake Superior and 
crowded out the Sioux. From that time on there were unremitting 
conflicts between these Algonkin and Dakotan enemies. The Sioux 
struggled to retain their ancient hunting grounds, but were finally 
crowded back to the St. Croix. For a century and more these na- 
tions were almost uninterruptedly at war, and their traditions tell 
of many bloody battles fought beneath the somber pines of the 
north. In the Chippewa tongue the word Sioux means "the enemy." 
For many years the string of islands in Green Bay were known 
as the Pottawattomie group, from the Indians who made their home 
upon them. These wandering Indians did not abide long in any one 
place. In 1641 they were at Sault Ste. Marie fleeing before the face 
of the Sioux. In 1721 they were widely scattered, some in Wiscon- 
sin, some near Detroit, some in Indiana. For a while they were at 



The Story of the State. 27 

the site where Milwaukee has since been built, and the English 
commander at Green Bay in great disgust wrote of them as "those 
runagates of Milwackie, a horrid set of refractory Indians." These 
Indians joined the standard of Tecumseh and fought at Tippecanoe; 
they were the ones who massacred the garrison of Fort Dearborn 
(Chicago). 

The Pottawattomies are the Indians whose traditions gave to the 
poet Longfellow much of the material for his great poem, '"Hia- 
watha." 

Most warlike in their intercourse with the French were the 
Foxes and their confederates, the Sacs. The great war of extermina- 
tion which the French waged against them for many years is one of 
the most barbarous epochs of Western history. This restless and 
fierce tribe was the only one of Algonkin origin against whom the 
French waged war. In 1712 the Foxes, with the Mascoutens and 
Kickapoos, attacked Detroit, but the French defeated them with the 
aid of Pottawattomie allies. 

In all parts of the state survive relics of Indian occupation, not 
only in the implements of flint and stone found underground, but in 
the names of lakes, rivers and towns. Some of these are herewith 
given with their meaning: 

Sheboygan— A hollow bone; another version is that the original Indian 
word, Shawh-wa-way-kun, expresses a tradition "that a great noise, coming 
under ground was heard at this river." 

Waukesha — Pronounced by the Indians waw-goosh-sha, the little fox. 

Pewaukee — Pronounced Pee-wau-naw-kee, the flinty place. 

Oshkosh — Named after a well-known Menomonee chief, signifies brave; an- 
other meaning is a hoof. 

Manitowoc — Pronounced Manitou-wauk, the home of the spirits. 

Milwaukee— Pronounced by the Indians Me-ne-aw-kee, a rich or beautiful 
land. 

Kenosha — A long flsh, a pike; from. Kenose, long. 

Mazomanie— Walker on iron, the name of a Sioux chief. 

Mequon — Feather or quill. 

Nashotah — Twin. 

Ozaukee^ — Yellow earth. 

Wausau — Far off. 

Waupun — Early, frontier. 

Weyauwega — A corruption of the word "Wey-au-we-ya," signifying whirl- 
ing wind. 

Wisconsin — Father Marquette's narration spells the name Meskousing, after- 
wards rendered as Ouisconsin by the euphony-loving French. Its meaning is 
"strong current," according to the general acceptation of Indian philologists, 
but it has also been rendered as "great stone." 

Kewaunee — Doubtless a Chippewa word, meaning prairie hen. 

Muskego— Cranberry in the Pottawattomie tongue. 

Koshkonong— Signifies "the lake we live on." Here the warriors of Black 
Hawk were in hiding for a time during the Indian war of 1832. 

According to the federal census of 1890 there are now in Wis- 
consin nearly 10,000 Indians. Instead of roaming around the state 
as of yore, two-thirds of these Indians live on the reservations pro- 



28 Leading Events of Wiscorusin History. 

vided by the state. There are seven reservations in Wisconsin, un- 
der two agencies, one at Green Bay and one at La Pointe. 

The Indian population of Wisconsin embraces to-day remnants 
of tribes belonging to the three greatest linguistic stocks on the 
North American continent — Dakotan (Siouan), Algonkin (Algic) and 
Iroquoian. 

The Oneidas came from New York sixty years ago, and orig- 
inally belonged to the great Five Nations. The Stockbridges re- 
moved here from Massachusetts. Part of the Munsee tribe of West- 
ern New York were absorbed by the Stockbridges by adoption. These 
Stockbridges were originally Pequods or Mohegans, thus constitut- 
ing a connecting link with some of the best known tribes of New 
England. Wisconsin may therefore claim to possess "the last of the 
Mohicans." 



Indian Reservations Hunting Grounds of the Wisconsin 
IN Wisconsin, 1897. Indians in the Seventeenth Century. 

The Brotherton Indians, in colonial days, made Long Island 
their home. A century ago they adopted the English language and 
obtained the name of Brotherton Indians from the fact that they 
organized themselves into brotherhoods and lived in a town. This 
was before their removal to Wisconsin. 

The only Indians who were ever elected to seats in the Wis- 
consin legislature were Brothertons. They were named Alonzo and 
William Dick, and they represented the same district in the '50's. 

The wandering Indians of Wisconsin are a shiftless set, who 
pick up a meager living as berry pickers In the cranberry marshes 
and blueberry fields of Central and Northwestern Wisconsin. Some 
of them are employed in the logging camps of the woods during the 
winter months. 



CHAPTER V. 

LEGENDARY LORE OF WISCONSIN INDIANS. 

I:^ COMMON with other tribes east of the Mississippi, the Indians 
of Wisconsin possessed many ancient traditions concerning the story 
of the creation, relative >.o the significance of the elements, or per- 
taining to their religious ceremonies. But not all their legendary 
lore bore such a wide significance; much of it was of local applica- 
tion. As Longfellow has poetically phrased it, in his introduction 
to "The Song of Hiawatha": 

Should you ask me whence these stories? 
Whence these legends and traditions, 
"With the odors of the forest. 
With the dew and damp of meadows. 
With the curling smoke of wigwams. 
With the rushing of great rivers, 
With their frequent repetitions. 
And their wild reverberations 
As of thunder in the mountains? 

I should answer, I should tell you, 
"From the forests and the prairies. 
From the great lakes of the Northland, 
From the land of the Ojibways, 
From the land of the Dacotahs, 
From the mountains, moors and fenlands. 
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, 
Feeds among the reeds and rushes; 
In the birds'-nests of the forest. 
In the lodges of the beaver. 
In the hoof-prints of the bison, 
In the eyry of the eagle!" 

Indian legends abound concerning the curious rock formation 
along Lake Superior, at the dalles of the St. Croix and Wisconsin 
and at Devil's Lake. 

Most beautifully told of all Indian legends is "The Song of Hia- 
watha." The scene of this Indian Edda, as it has been termed, is 
among the Ojibwas on the southern shore of Lake Superior. The 
author has availed himself of a poet's license, and in the musioa) 
narrative has interwoven many curious legends which were not cur- 
rent among the Indians of Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of 
Michigan. In the song, the adoption of the calumet — the univers- 
ally recognized symbol of peace among the Indians — is given as hav- 
ing occurred somewhere in the vicinity of the northwestern part of 
the state. The story as told by Longfellow is that Gitche Manito, 
the mighty, called all the nations together in council 

On the Mountains of the Prairie, 
On the great Red Pipestone Quarry. 

29 



30 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

The tribes came from the remote corners of the land, their faces 
set in stern defiance, "in their hearts the feud of ages, the hereditary 
hatred, the ancestral thirst for vengeance." The great Gitche 
Manito looked upon his quarreling children with compassion. 

Prom the old stone of the quarry 
With his hand he broke a fragment, 
Moulded it into a pipe-head. 
Shaped and fashioned it with figures; 
From the margin of the river 
Took a long reed for a pipe-stem, 
With its dark-green leaves upon it; 
Filled the pipe with bark of willow. 
With the bark of the red willow; 
Breathed upon the neighboring forest, 
Made its great boughs chafe together, 
Till in flame they burst and kindled. 

He stretched his right hand over them to subdue their stubborn 
natures; he allayed their thirst and fever, he spoke to them words of 
wisdom and of warning. He told them to bathe in the stream before 
them, to wash the warpaint from their faces and the blood-stains 
from their fingers; then to bury their war-clubs and weapons, and 
from the red stone of the quarry to fashion pipes of peace. 

They heeded the counsel thus given: 

And in silence all the warriors 
Broke the red stone of the quarry, 
Smoothed and formed it into peace-pipes. 
Broke the long reeds by the river. 
Decked them with their brightest feathers. 
And departed each one homeward. 

In his "Letters and Notes" Catlin has given an interesting ac- 
count of the Red Pipestone quarry, with its legend of the origin of 
the peace-pipe. Longfellow's version is substantially the same. Cat- 
lin concludes the legend thus: 

"At the last whiff of his pipe, his head went into a great cloud, 
and the whole surface of the rock for several miles was melted and 
glazed; two great ovens were opened beneath, and two women en- 
tered them in a blaze of fire. They are heard there yet answering 
to the invocations of high priests or medicine men, who consult 
them when they are visitors to this sacred place." 

In Emerson's "Indian Myths" is given the Winnebago tradition 
of the origin of man: "Having created the earth and the grass and 
the trees, the Great Spirit took a piece out of his heart, near which 
had been taken the earth, and formed the fragmant into a man. The 
woman then was made, but a bit of flesh sufficed for her; therefore 
it is that man became great in wisdom, but the woman very much 
wanting in sense. To the man was given the tobacco seed, that, 
thrown upon the fire, it might propitiate the messenger — manittos to 
convey prayers or supplications; to the woman a seed of every kind 
of grain was given, and to her were indicated the roots and herbs for 
medicine. Now the Great Spirit commanded the two to look down; 



The Story of the State. 



31 



and they looked down, when lo! there stood a child between them. 
Enjoining the pair to take care of all the children they might ob- 
tain in the future, he created the male and female the first parents 
of all tribes upon the earth. He then informed them, in the Win- 
nebago language, that they should live in the center of the earth. 
The spirit then created the beasts and birds, for the use of all man- 
kind; but the tobacco and fire were given to the Winnebagoes. ' 

The Indians hold the maize, or Indian corn, in great veneration. 
"They esteem it so important and divine a grain," says Schoolcraft, 
"that their story-tellers invented various tales, in which this idea 




Indian Women Gathering Wild Rice. 
(After Schoolcraft.) 



is symbolized under the form of a special gift from the Great Spirit. 
The Ojibwa-Algonkins, who call it Mon-da-min, that is, the spirit's 
grain or berry, have a pretty story of this kind, in which the stalk 
in full tassei is represented as descending from the sky, under the 
guise of a handsome youth, in answer to the prayers of a young 
man. It is well known that corn-planting and corn-gathering are 
left entirely to the females and children, and a few superannuated 
old men. It is not generally known, perhaps, that this labor is not 
compulsory, and that it is assumed by the females as a just equiva- 
lent, in their view, for the onerous and continuous labor of the other 
sex in providing meats, and skins for clothing, by the chase, and in 



32 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

defending their villages against their enemies, and keeping intruders 
off their territories. A good Indian housewife deems this a part of 
her prerogative and prides herself to have a store of corn to exer- 
cise her hospitality." 

Schoolcraft also relates a custom respecting corn-planting show- 
ing a singular belief in the mysterious influence exercised by women 
over the vegetable and insect creation. 

"It was the practice of the hunter's wife, when the field of corn 
had been planted, to choose the first dark or overclouded evening 
to perform a secret circuit, sans habillement, around the field. For 
this purpose she slipped out of the lodge in the evening, unobserved, 
to some obscure nook, where she completely disrobed. Then taking 
her matchecota, or principal garment, in one hand, she dragged it 
around the field. This was thought to insure a prolific crop, and to 
prevent the assault of insects and worms upon the grain. It was 
supposed they could not creep over the charmed line." 

For many years there lived on the eastern bank of Green Bay 
an old Indian woman who was believed to have long passed the 
century mile-stone of her life. This old woman was fond of telling 
a legend associated with a place on the shore of the bay, known as 
Red Banks, an interesting earth-work resembling a fortification. Its 
location at the top of a precipice a hundred feet high, accessible 
from the water by means of a protected passage of steps cut into the 
clay, led to many surmises. Hon. Charles D. Robinson, a pioneer 
editor of Green Bay, translated the story associated with Red Banks, 
as told to him by the withered old woman. This is the legend, in a 
condensed form: 

"It was long ago, I was so high" — placing her hand about three 
feet from the ground — "when my grandfather told me the story. 
The Sauks and Outagamies lived in the old fort at the Red Banks. 
The forests eastward were full of deer, the waters of the bay were 
full of fish, and they possessed the whole. We (the Menomonees) 
lived over the bay. We sent down the lakes, inviting the other 
tribes to come up and help us drive out the Sauks and Outagamies. 
They came in canoes, the Chippewas, Pottawattomies and Ottawas 
and many more. You see how wide the bay is; their canoes stretched 
half way across. The bay was half full of canoes and each canoe 
was full of fighting men. They landed here at the Red river, and 
for two miles along the beach their canoes were so thick that no 
more could be crowded in." 

The old woman described how the doomed fort was surrounded 
and how just before daylight the great battle began. The besieged 
fought bravely, but they had no water, for the supply was cut off 
by the warriors along the beach. They tried in every way to ob- 
tain it. Vessels attached to cords were let down to the water at 
night, but the cords were cut before the vessels could be drawn up. 



The Story of the State. 33 

"Come down and drink!" cried the Menomonees. "Here is plenty 
of water, if you dare to come down and get it." 

These taunts and the great necessity of the besieged made that 
narrow way an avenue of death, but all to no purpose. The heat of 
a burning sun and the dreadful suffering for want of water became 
unendurable. A few drops of rain fell once, but only enough to 
tantalize those who were perishing in sight of the water that 
sparkled almost within reach. At length, one of the young chiefs 
had a dream, after fasting strictly for ten days. He told it thus: 

"Listen! last night there stood by me the form of a young man 
clothed in white, who said: 'Fear not; I will deliver you. At mid- 
night I will cast a deep sleep upon your enemies. Then go forth 
boldly and silently, and you shall escape.' " 

That night an unusual silence prevailed in the camp of the 
enemy. Stealthily the wearied besiegers passed out and fled. Only 
a few, who disbelieved the vision, remained. They were massacred 
with fierce barbarity, when next morning the besieging tribes awoke 
from their strange slumbers to find that their prey was gone. 

The legend of the red swan has been told by several chroniclers 
of Indian lore. Its most interesting form is that imparted to it by 
Mrs. H. S. Baird, in her "Early Recollections." She was a native 
of Prairie du Chien and was the descendant of Returning Cloud, a 
distinguished Ottawa chief. For many years Mrs. Baird made Green 
Bay her home. This is the legend of the red swan, in abbreviated 
form, beginning, like the juvenile fairy tale: 

Once upon a time a young man was out hunting. He came to 
the shore of a beautiful lake, and there he saw floating a red swan. 
As he shot, the swan flew toward the west, leaving in its trail an ex- 
quisitely-hued radiance. This the young man followed, and at night- 
fall came to a wigwam where dwelt an old man and his daughter. 
The old man was making bows and arrows, and the daughter was 
making moccasins. He was hospitably entertained. The next morn- 
ing the young hunter could still see the red streak marking the path- 
way of the swan. He turned to the old man and begged to be given 
the daughter as wife. 

"Prove yourself worthy of her by overtaking the swan," was the 
reply. "If you do this, she is yours." 

Making an early start, the hunter followed the track of the swan 
all day. At night he came to another wigwam occupied by an old 
man and his daughter. He received the same greeting and treat- 
ment as before, and the wooing of the daughter met with similar 
response. 

Nine successive days passed by, each offering the same circum- 
stances and conditions, save only that each daughter was more 
beautiful than the last met, and that the swan had passed at a later 
hour each day. 



34 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

On the tenth day the sky was crimson in its splendor. Again at 
twilight he came to a wigwam. An old man sat alone, muttering 
strange words and boiling roots and herbs in a cauldron. 

"Who gave you permission to enter here and interrupt me?" he 
asked in a tone of annoyance. 

The young hunter hastened to explain. He told his adventures 
of the past ten days, and asked whether the red swan had passed. 

The old man grew uneasy, and the young man now perceived 
that the wigwam was all aglow and luminous with a warm, bright 
light. 

In the morning he prepared to pursue the swan, but the old man 
said to him: 

"You have proved yourself brave; now you shall be rewarded." 

Opening the mat door he brought out the red swan, his daugh- 
ter, the most beautiful maiden the youth had ever beheld. 

"Take her," said the old man, "to your own land and hunting 
grounds, and be happy. Gitchie Manitou will watch over you." 

The legend of the "Spirit of the Corn" is current among the In- 
dians of the Lake Superior country. It was told to the German 
traveler. Kohl, and a translation of his narrative reads thus: 

Once a tribe of Indians had an extraordinary corn year. On 
their small fields they had grown an uncommon quantity of maize. 
But this rendered them very arrogant and extravagant. They de- 
voured more than they wanted; they let the corn lie about and rot. 
The children fought with the stalks like sticks and threw them in 
the mud. 

At length they grew so surfeited of the excellent corn that they 
went off hunting, after cacheing the remainder of their grain stores. 
But they secured no game. Soon hunger and need broke out and 
they remembered their corn. They found that the whole store had 
been devoured by mice. They saw that a powerful destiny had de- 
clared against them. 

One of the old men who had taken no part in the waste of the 
golden corn, while walking solitary in the forest, came to a birch 
bark lodge. Within it was a miserable looking manikin, stretched 
out on dirty, much worn hides. 

"See," said the Spirit of the Corn, in a mournful voice, "what a 
wretched condition these men have placed me in. They insulted 
me in the most ungrateful manner. This is the cause of their own 
misfortune and present want. I have no water in my jug and no 
clothes; not even a leaf to protect me from the cold. Weeds and 
wild plants grow in my garden, and the savage beasts of the forest 
prowl around me. Go back and tell this to thy people." 

When the good Indian told his people the wretched condition in 
which he had found the good Spirit of the Corn, they realized that 
their own culpable extravagance was the cause of their misfortune. 



The Story of the State. 



35 



They hurried home to their uncultivated and weed-choked gardens. 
They sacrificed a dog to the Spirit of the Corn. A little corn which 
the mice had not eaten served for a fresh sowing. They managed 
to get on somehow till the next summer, and then had a good 
harvest; they used it more carefully, and then their hunting luck 
returned. 

Among the Ojibwas on Lake Superior, the months have the fol- 
lowing names and meanings: 

January — The moon of the spirits. 

February — The moon of the suckers, because those fish begin going up the 
river then. 

March — The moon of the snow-crust, because then the sun covers the top 
of the snow with a firm crust, and it is a good time to travel. 

April — The moon for breaking the snow-shoes, because then the snow dis- 
appears and the snow-shoes are often broken. 

May — The moon of the flowers. 

June — Strawberry moon. 

July — Raspberry moon. 

August — Whortleberry moon. 

September — The moon of the wild-rice. 

October — The moon of the falling leaf. 

November — The freezing moon. 

December — The moon of little spirits. 



n 7 6 



A 



X||X||X||Xi|xjlX||X 

... U IIIIIH [l llllllll. II.IIIM 



An Ojibwa Family Record. 

(Loon-Foot had his family genealogical record for nine generations. The 
above strokes, crosses and points were made on a piece of birch-bark, each 
division representing one generation and his memory supplying the names.) 



All the Indians cannot divide the moon with equal precision, and 
disputes are prolific between the old men, as they argue with comi- 
cal seriousness as to what moon they are in. 

The superstitions of the Sioux, who dwelt along the St. Croix 
river were similar to those of the Ojibwas (Chippewas) as regards 
the various moons. It was their belief that the material of which 
the moon is made is edible; when the moon is full, a legion of mice 
commence nibbling at it, and finally it is consumed. Then a new 
moon begins to grow, to be in turn devoured by the mice. The 
Sioux calendar is thus given: 



36 LeadUip Events of Wisconsin History. 

January — Witeri, the hard moon. 

February — Wicatawi, the raccoon moon. 

March — Istawicayazanwi, the sore-eyed moon. 

April — Magaokadiwi, the moon in which the geese lay eggs. 

May — Mojupiwi, the planting moon. 

June — Wajustecasawi, the moon when the strawberries are red. 

July — Wasunpawi, the moon when the geese shed their feathers. 

August — Wasutonwi, the harvest moon. 

September — Psinhnaktuwi, the moon when rice is laid up to dry. 

October— Wazupiwi, the drying rice moon. 

November — Takiyurawi, the deer-rutting moon. 

December — Tahecapsunwi, the moon when the deer shed their horns. 

It is curious tiow the ettorts of the missionaries among the In- 
dians have served to weave familiar bible stories into their original 
legends. Thus the story of the creation, which now obtains among 
certain of the reservation bands in the northern part of the state, 
is a faithful adaptation of the biblical story, and the forbidden fruit 
episode In Paradise has liltewise been given a red man's version. 
The Wisconsin Indians locate this happening on Lac du Flambeau, 
in Vilas county. The first man and his squaw, Mani, answering to 
the Adam and Eve of the bible story, lived on a beautiful island in 
this lake. In the garden grew the most delicious fruits and there 
were large, fine fields, wherein grew Indian corn and beans. The 
Great Spirit pointed out one tree whose fruit they must not eat. 
One day Mani heard a seductive voice say: 

"Mani, Mani, why dost thou not eat of this beautiful fruit; it 
will make thy heart glad." 

The fruit smelled pleasantly and Mani licked it a little. Then 
she swallowed it, and felt as if intoxicated. When her husband 
came she persuaded him to eat also of the fruit. Immediately the 
beautiful silver scales with which they had been covered fell off — 
only twenty of these scales remained, but they lost their brilliancy, 
ten on the fingers and ten on the toes. 

They were banished from the beautiful isle, which immediately 
grew wild. The Gitche Manito bore them in his canoe to the shore 
of Lac du Flambeau. But he had compassion on them. He gave the 
man bow and arrow, and told him he would find animals, which were 
called deer. These he was to shoot, and Mani would get ready the 
meat for him and convert the hide into moccasins and clothing. 

There is a legend that tells how Ashland bay derived its name 
from an Indian word that in its original form meant "far-stretching 
breakers." 

Menabosho, pursuing the Great Beaver from the St. Mary's river 
(where he broke his dams and thus formed the upper and lower 
rapids) through his pond (Lake Superior) drove him into Ashland 
bay. To secure his prey, Menabosho built a long dam from the 
south shore to Madaline island. While engaged in this work he 
threw handfuls of earth behind him into the outer lake, where they 
remain as the smaller Apostle islands. 



The Story of the State. 37 

The dam being finished, Menabosho, sure of having cornered his 
game, entered through the north channel, between Madeline island 
and Bayfield peninsula, but behold! the Great Beaver, digging out 
the isouth channel, between Madaline island and Shagawamikon 
point, broke through Menabosho's dam, and escaped. 

Capt. Dwight H. Kelton, U. S. A., who tells this story, adds this 
explanation: "The width of the south channel is now two and a 
half miles; but the older inhabitants say that formerly a point of 
land, extending from the western extremity of the island toward 
Shagawamikon, made it much narrower. At one time, according to 
tradition, the distance was so short that an arrow could be shot 
across. The neck of the long point has been washed through within 
the last thirty years." 



PART II. 



IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE EXPLORERS, 




4*90. 




CHAPTER I. 

WHEN WISCONSIN WAS DISCOVERED. 

As THE quest of Columbus for a short route to the Indies led to 
the discovery of a continent, so the search for a short highway to 
the fabled riches of China and Japan — ^the Cathay and Zipango of 
Marco Polo — brought an intrepid discoverer to the heart of that 
continent, Wisconsin. Here mingle the waters that through devious 
channels later flow in opposite directions — some swelling that vast 
volume that pours from the mighty Mississippi into the Gulf of 
Mexico at the rate of twenty million of millions cubic feet of water 
annually; others passing through the chain of lakes into the St. 
Lawrence, thence into the frozen regions of the North Atlantic. 

It was a period when the great highways of commerce were those 
provided by nature — the rivers and the lakes. The upper Mississippi 
had not been discovered and nothing was known of the vast conti- 
nent that stretched westward. Men believed that a few days' jour- 
ney would take thein to Its limits — perhaps to China. When the 
pioneer white man steered his frail birch-bark canoe along the 
western shore of Green Bay, he thought he had reached China. His 
coming occurred in the year 1634. This was two years before Roger 
Williams founded his Rhode Island colony; but a year after the be- 
ginnings of Connecticut were made; only twenty-seven years after 
the founding of the first permanent English settlement, that at 
Jamestown, and but fourteen years later than the landing of the 
Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. 

A Parisian mail carrier's son was the first white man to step up- 
on Wisconsin soil. The year was 1634, and King Louis XIII. reigned 
as monarch of France. Thus, by the law of nations relating to new 
discoveries, the son of Mary de Medici became the first sovereign 
of Wisconsin. 

Jean Nicolet entered what now has become known as the Old 
Northwest through its natural gateway, the great arm of Lake 
Michigan that bears the name Green Bay. A hundred years before, 
the French had sailed up the St. Lawrence and started their first 
settlement in Canada. Rigorous winters and savage enmity com- 
bined with other untoward circumstances to render their foothold at 
Montreal insecure, and exploration westward was a slow process. At 
the end of a century they had progressed no further than Lake 
Huron. No Frenchman had ventured into the forest fastnesses of 



42 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana or Ohio. Nothing was 
known as to the extent of the mysterious region that stretched 
westward, though few men believed that there was more than a nar- 
row strip between the great lakes and the China sea. The delusion 
was common that a river would be found leading to the Celestial em- 
pire. Thus the dream of Columbus survived in modified form a hun- 
dred and fifty years after the caravel of the explorer had grated its 
keel on the shore of Watling's island. 

From time to time wandering Indians brought to the eager list- 
eners at Quebec tales of the unknown western region. These but 
made more keen the desire to reach the riches of Cathay thitherward; 
but the vague accounts of the Indians were distorted and misappre- 




Samuel de Champlain. 

The Governor of New France, W^ho Sent Nicolet to the Winnebagoes of Wisconsin 
as His Ambassador. 



hended. How little was actually known of this region is shown by 
a map carefully drawn by Champlain, governor of New France, two 
years before Nicolet started on his quest. On it Green Bay is placed 
north of Lake Superior, and Lakes Huron and Ontario are connected 
directly. Lake Michigan is not on his map unless his Lac des 
Puants — the usual designation for Green Bay — is intended to repre- 
sent it. An Island designated as the region of copper mines he 
places in Green Bay. Niagara Falls he had never seen and his sup- 
position was that it was a rapid in the river. 

Though he had mistakenly located copper mines on a Green Bay 
island, he knew positively of the existence of the metal, for an In- 
dian had brought him a lump of the virgin ore. Other Indians, who 
were wont to come down the Ottawa river in their flotillas of canoes 



The Story of the State. 43 

to trade with the Frenchmen, had told him of a nation dwelling 
some distance westward who were known as the "People of the Sea." 
These were the Wisconsin Winnebagoes, who years before had mi- 
grated to the region of the lake that now bears their tribal name, but 
Champlain believed they were Chinamen. 

The fanciful description of this people given by his Indian vis- 
itors and the fact that they made their habitation on the shores of a 
"great water" confirmed Champlain in his belief that he had at last 
found the long-sought clue to the route to China. He chose Jean 
Nicolet as his ambassador. Nicolet had lived for a number of years 
in the lodges of the Algonkin tribes, and knew their languages. He 
was accustomed to the fatigues and privations of wilderness life, and 
the lore of the woods was a lesson he had conned fully as v/ell as any 
of his dusky companions. In July of the year 1634 he started on his 
journey, accompanied by some Jesuit priests who were about to es- 
tablish a mission in the Huron country and were glad to avail them- 
selves of Nicolet's guidance. At the Isle de AUumettes they parted, 
and Nicolet pursued his way with Indian companions only. A glance 
at the map is necessary to convey an idea of the journey thus made 
in a canoe. Starting from Quebec and leaving the St. Lawrence at 
its junction with the Ottawa, Nicolet ascended this stream to the 
tributary whose Indian name, Mattawin, signifies "Home of the 
Beaver"; thence Lake Nipissing was reached by means of a narrow 
passage or "carry." Next his canoe floated down the French* river 
into Georgian bay and Lake Huron. He passed the Manitoulin isl- 
ands, skirted the shore of the great lake and came to the place 
where dwelt the "People of the Falls," the Sault Ste. Marie familiar 
on modern maps. Here he and his seven Hurons rested. But a few 
miles westward was the eastern extremity of the largest fresh water 
body in the world, Lake Superior. There is no evidence to show 
that Nicolet went nearer this lake than the sault, or falls. Instead 
he seemes to have rested at the falls with his seven Huron com- 
panions, and then retraced his way down the strait and entered Lake 
Michigan through the Mackinac passage. For the first time a white 
man saw the broad surface of this inland sea. Along its northern 
shore his canoe was paddled by his dusky oarsmen. At the bay de 
Noquet he briefly tarried, and finally he came to the Menomonee 
where that river pours into Green Bay. 

At last Nicolet was on Wisconsin soil. He believed himself to 
be on the threshold of China. The Menomonees, who made their 
habitation here, were of a lighter complexion than the Indians Nico- 
let knew. Some writers have ascribed this circumstance to the use 
of wild rice by these Indians as a staple article of diet. Champlain's 
messenger learned that but a short journey would now bring him to 
the land of the Winnebagoes. He sent one of his Hurons to apprise 
the supposed celestials of his coming and prepared to meet them in 



44 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



becoming style. For this purpose he had brought a robe of gorge- 
ous hue, like unto Joseph's in its resplendent coloring. The early 
French narrative, known as the Vimont Relation, describes how 
Nicolet's mandarin dress was besprinkled with birds of bright 
plumage and flowers of many hues, in woven work. 

If Nicolet erred in his conception of the Winnebagoes, this tribe 
of red men likewise formed erroneous notions concerning their vis- 
itor. They believed him a Manitou or spirit, an impression that 
was accentuated when he advanced into their midst with a pistol 




Champlain's Map of the Wisconsin Region, 1632. 
The "Father of New France" based the old map of which the above is a 
section in outline — the first which aims to define the region of the great lakes — 
on the accounts of the Indians who came in flotillas to Canada to trade with him. 
On this map Lake Superior is designated as "Grand Lac," Lake Huron as "Mer 
Douce." Green Bay he designates as the region where then lived the "Nation 
des Puans" (Winnebagoes), and locates this sheet of water north of Lake Supe- 
rior. A large island in this bay, or lake, as he calls it, is given as the location 
of great copper mines. Lake Michigan does not exist on his map, though some 
authorities hold that he meant Green Bay to represent Lake Michigan. The map 
is a curious specimen of early geographical misconceptions. In the above repro- 
duction the English synonyms are given for the French names put down by 
Champlain. 



in each hand, the contents of which he discharged in the air with 
great dramatic effect. He was very much disappointed to learn, 
however, that the "People of the Sea," in quest of whom he had un- 
dertaken his long and arduous canoe voyage, wore moccasins and 
other savage apparel in place of the product of the loom. With true 
French adaptability he made the best of the situation and pro- 
ceeded to win to the French interest these nations of the West. He 
urged them to come to Montreal for barter, and not to engage in 
war with the nations friendly to the French. 



The Story of the State. 45 

The coming of the wonderful man caused a great gathering of 
Indians. One account estimates the number of people wno came 
to greet him at 5,000, but later accounts considerably reduced this 
undoubted exaggeration. The Relation heretofore quoted mentions 
that a great feast was held. Judging from the quantity of pro- 
visions consumed, the number of warriors must have been large and 
their appetities considerably sharpened. There were consumed, if 
the account of the feast is true, more than one hundred beavers, 
besides many deer and other forest viands secured by the chase. 

When he left the Winnebagoes, Nicolet proceeded up the Fox 
river, journeying through the great regions of wild rice marshes, 
till he came to the Mascoutens. He was now but a short distance 
from the Wisconsin river. A journey of but three days would have 
taken him to it, and thence he could have drifted down to the "great 
water." Instead, he proceeded southward towards the Illinois coun- 
try, and thus missed discovering the upper Mississippi. It was not 
till thirty-nine years later that Joliet and his party reached the 
Mississippi. 

After a sojourn among the Illinois and kindred tribes, Nicolet 
returned to the Green Bay country, doubtless along the western 
coast of Lake Michigan — Lac Illinois and Lac Dauphin as it appears 
on the early maps. He visited the Pottawattomies who dwelt on the 
islands in the bay, and when spring thawed the ice and made canoe 
voyaging possible, returned to Montreal by way of the French and 
Ottawa rivers. 

Six months later the great Champlain aied. Indian troubles at 
home kept his successors from following up the investigations in 
the West, even had they possessed the inquiring and adventurous 
spirit of the "father of New France." Nearly a quarter of a century 
was to elapse before another French voyageur dared to follow in the 
wake of the first comer. 

But Nicolet had blazed the path. 

The fate of Nicolet possesses a pathetic interest. A man of warm 
sympathies as well as brave spirit, he was beloved by Frenchmen 
and Indians, and spent much of his time in ministering to the sick 
and in performing official duties at Three Rivers and Quebec, where 
he served as commissary and interpreter. One evening word was 
brought him that the Algonkins were torturing an Indian prisoner. 
To prevent this he entered a launch to go to the place, with several 
companions. A squall overturned the boat, and the occupants clung 
to the craft for some time. The waves tore one after another from 
their frail support. As Nicolet was about to be swept away, he 
called to his companions: 

"I am going to God. I commend to you my wife and daughter." 

It was through the gateway of Wisconsin that civilization en- 
tered the Mississippi valley. The coming of Nicolet was but the 
presage of greater events. While Anglo-Saxon colonists were strug- 



46 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

gling to keep a foothold on ihe strip of coast along the Atlantic, the 
volatile Frenchmen were penetrating the very heart of the conti- 
nent. The former advanced by slow stages, but kept a firm grip 
on everything they seized; the latter obtained their territory with 
ease, and as readily lost it. The Anglo-Saxon built his colony on an 
enduring foundation; the careless, mercurial Frenchman thought but 
of to-day and had no concern for the morrow. As with the indi- 
vidual, so with the government. Had the French induced their col- 
onists to undertake agricultural pursuits instead of encouraging 
them to roam the woods for beaver peltries, perhaps the history of 
Wisconsin would to-day be materially different. 

The fall of New France occurred thirteen years before the min- 
ute men at Concord and Lexington fired the signal shots of the 
American revolution; long after that period, through that crucial 
test that cemented the colonies into a nation, through the stormy 
periods of the first administrations, till after the close of the war of 
1812, the Wisconsin region remained essentially French. For almost 
two hundred years there passed in procession through Wisconsin 
the French coureurs de bois, wild, lawless as the Indians with whom 
they fraternized; the titled and impoverished noblemen who sought 
glory as voyageurs; the priestly wanderers in somber garb who 
came with crucifix, as their companions came with sword. 

"The French dominion is a memory of the past," says Parkman, 
"and when we evoke its departed shades, they rise upon us from 
their graves in strange, romantic guise. Again their ghostly camp- 
fires seem to burn, and the fitful light is cast around on lord and 
vassel and black-robed priest, mingled with wild forms of savage 
warriors, knit in close fellowship on the same stern errand. A 
boundless vision grows upon us; an untamed continent; vast wastes 
of forest verdure; mountains silent in primeval sleep; river, lake 
and glimmering pool; wilderness oceans mingling with the sky. 
Such was the domain which France conquered for civilization. 
Plumed helmets gleamed in the shade of its forests, priestly vest- 
ments in its dens and fastnesses of ancient barbarism. Pushing into 
the wilderness, their indomitable soldiers and devoted priests un- 
veiled the secrets of the barbarous continent; pierced the forests, 
traced and mapped out the streams, planted their emblems, built 
their forts and claimed all as their own." 

And to-day Frenchmen have in all of North America not one 
rood of soil they can call their own. 




French Carry-All. 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF RADISSON. 

Those who were babes when Jean Nicolet returned to Montreal 
to tell what he had seen beyond the lakes, had grown to man's 
estate ere once more the sound of a white man's gun awoke reverber- 
ating echoes in the forests of Wisconsin. Twenty years or more had 
passed away, and the story of the lonely canoe voyage of Cham- 
plain's ambassador had be'^n all but forgottten. The Jesuit Rela- 
tion of 1660 notes in that year the return to Montreal of two ven- 
turesome explorers, who had penetrated to the Lake Superior region. 
They had also "visited the headwaters of the Black river, in North- 
western Wisconsin, and been guests of honor in the skin lodges and 
mud cabins of the Sioux in Northern Minnesota." The Jesuit Rela- 
tions seldom mention names of others than members of the order, 
and thus the identity of these two unnamed voyageurs remained un- 
known for more than two centuries. Patient research has finally 
established the fact that they were two adventurous Frenchmen 
named Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Medart Chouart des Groseilliers. 
Groseilliers was the husband of Radisson's sister. They spent sev- 
eral years in their dangerous wanderings and had many startling 
a,dventure& and escapes from death. 

For some supposed or actual slights suffered from their coun- 
trymen, upon their return to Montreal, they attached themselves to 
the cause of the rival Englishmen, though later they renewed their 
allegiance to France. In fact they appear to have been men of 
elastic conscience when self-interest distated a change of flag. Phys- 
ically they were stout-hearted, and in many respects displayed 
much capacity. Radisson became the husband of a daughter of John 
Kirke, who was knighted during the reign of Charles II. 

The story of the adventures of Radisson and his brother-in-law 
has been gathered chiefly from a manuscript narrative written by 
the former when he was in England. This manuscript has a curi- 
ous history. It was not written for publication, but to interest King 
Charles in the schemes of the renegade Frenchmen to have the 
English wrest the Hudson Bay country from French control. They 
did interest Prince Rupert, and the founding of the famous Hudson 
Bay company resulted from their efforts. This journal of Radisson's 
came into the possession of Samuel Pepys, author of the well-known 
Pepys Diary, who was secretary' of the admiralty. After his death, 
many of the Pepys collections of manuscripts were kicked about in 
garrets. Some of them went into waste-paper baskets. Others 
drifted into possession of London shopkeepers, and among them 
Radisson's journal. After many years the journal was picked up, 

47 



4d Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

in 1750, by a man who recognized its value and turned it over to a 
British library. There it slumbered until 1885, when the Prince 
society of Boston published it in a limited edition. But two copies 
are owned in Wisconsin. 

Being the product of a Frenchman with a limited knowledge of 
English and an utter contempt for the rules of spelling, the journal 
of Radisson is a unique specimen of orthographic eccentricity. In 
other respects it is a most readable account of his strange adven- 
tures. Radisson's first experience was as a captive of the Mohawks. 
He was then a mere lad, and the Indians adopted him. Managing 
to escape, he joined the Dutch and sailed from Manhattan to Hol- 
land. He returned to New France, and after more adventures among 
the Indians, undertook his famous two trips to the West. The date 




French Votageur. 
(From an Oil Portrait at Montreal, 1835.) 

of his first voyage is usually given as 1658, but there is some evi- 
dence to show that he made a voyage westward two years earlier to 
the Green Bay region. 

In these voyages Radisson and his brother-in-law visited the 
Otttawas, "ye nation of ye stairing haires," as the French called 
them; the famous Fire Nation of Wisconsin, whose chiefs nearly a 
quarter of a century before had hospitably entertained Nicolet, 
passed a winter with the Pottawattomies, and heard of the Sioux 
nation and of a wandering tribe called the Christinos, dwelling on 
the shores of Hudson's Bay in summer and on the Wisconsin side 
of Lake Superior in winter. It is claimed that while with the Mas- 
coutens, or Fire Nation, the two Frenchmen made a canoe voyage 
to the Mississippi river, but evidence is lacking to prove the sur- 
mise that this is what Radisson meant in his journal in referring to 
"ye greate river." 



The Story of the State. 49 

"We weare 4 moneths in our voyage without doeing anything 
but goe from river to river," Radisson wrote. "We went into ye 
greate river that divides itself in 2." 

It was during their second voyage that Radisson and Groseilliers 
had their liveliest experience. En route they enjoyed themselves 
hugely shooting game — "it was to us like a terrestrial paradise." 
On the shore of Chequamegon bay they constructed the first habi- 
tation ever built by white men in Wisconsin, a little fort of stakes 
surrounded by a long cord on which little bells were tied. They 
reasoned that if hostile "wildmen," as they termed the Indians, came 
unexpectedly upon them, the ringing of these bells by sudden con- 
tact would apprise the occupants of the fort in season to guard 
against surprise. This is Radisson's curious description of the littie 
fort they built: 

"We went about to make a fort of stakes, wch was in this man- 
ner. Suppose that the watter side had ben in one end; att the same 
end there should be murtherers, and att need we made a bastion in 
a triangle to defend us from an assault. The doore was neare the 
watter side, our fire was in the midle, and our bed on the right hand 
covered. There were boughs of trees all about our fort layed acrosse, 
one uppon an other. Besides these boughs, we had a long cord tyed 
with some small bells, wch weare senteryes. Finally, we made an 
end of that fort in 2 dayes' time." 

The "wildmen" came, but proved to be friendly. In fact they 
seemed to fear the strangers, rather than wish to do them harm. 
But the Frenchmen were on their guard and took good care to pre- 
vent treachery and to astonish the natives with a show of power. In 
his quaint style, Radisson i-emarks in his journal: 

"We suffered none to goe in but one person (at a time), and (they) 
liked it so much the better & often durst not goe in, so much they 
stood in feare of our arms, that were in good order, wch weare 5 
guns, two musquetons, 3 fowling peeces, 3 paire of great pistoletts 
and 2 paire of pockett ons, and every one his sword and dagger." 
And he proudly exclaims: "We weare Cesars, being nobody to con- 
tradict us." 

Then he adds, in narrating a visit from fifty young warriors, 
and their wonder at sight of the fort: 

"They were astonished, calling us every foot devills to have 
made such a machine." 

When the Hurons went on their great winter hunt, Radisson 
and Groseilliers went with them. They killed much large game, 
for in those days Wisconsin's forests were the haunt of the moose, 
the elk, the antelope, the woodland caribou and other animals long 
extinct here, while on the prairies roamed great herds of buffalo. 
Among other quadrupeds killed were beavers, bears and wolverines. 
The moose seems to have been the chief trophy of the chase — Radis- 
son calls this animal the oriniack: 



50 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



"We beated downe the woods dayly for to discover novelties. 
We killed severall other beasts, as Oriniacks, staggs, wild cows, Car- 
riboucks, fallow does and bucks, Catts of mountains, child of the 
Devill; in a word, we lead a good life. The snow increases daily. 
There we make racketts, not to play at ball, but to exercise our- 
selves in a game harder and more necessary. Tney are broad, made 
like racketts, that they may goe in the snow and not sinke when 
they runne after the eland or other beast." 

Following this prodigality of hunting prowess, there came a 
great famine, for the snow, which fell in immense quantities, was so 




Co^Y^Y^^^' 



Large Wisconsin Game Killed by Radisson. 
(Radisson's Journal Speaks of the Moose as the "Oriniack.".) 

light that it would not bear the burden of the snowshoes, and hunt- 
ing for food was out of the question. With painful minuteness the 
journal of Radisson depicts their misery, which "grows wors and 
wors dayly." 

Though Radisson's journal was written some years after this 
event, its memories must have remained fresh, judging from the 
graphic fidelity of his narrative. "0, cursed covetousnesse," he 
wrote, "what art thou going to doe? Every one cryes out for hun- 
ger; Ffrench, you called yourselves Gods of the earth, that you 
should be feared, for your interest; notwithstanding you shall tast 
of the bitternesse. Where is the plentynesse that yee had in all places 



The Story of the State. 51 

and in c6untreys. Here comes a new family of these poore people 
dayly to us, halfe dead, for they have but the skins and boans. The 
first 2 weeke we did eate our doggs. As we went backe upon our 
stepps for to gett anything to fill our bellyes, we were glad to gett 
the boans and carcasses of the beasts that we killed. And happy 
was he that could gett what the other did throw away after it had 
been boiled 3 or foure times to get the substance out of it." 

Finally they were reduced to eating boiled skins, ground bones 
and the bark of trees. As Radisson expressed it, "finally we bee- 
came the very Image of Death. Here are above 500 dead. It's time 
to come out of such miseryes." 

At last the snow hardened and the wornout hunters were enabled 
with great effort to secure a few animals with which to cheer their 
famished stomachs. 

Much of the success that attended the barter of the two French- 
men with the Indians was due to the possession of merchandise that 
pleased the fancy of the latter. Such articles as kettles, hatchets, 
knives, garters, awls, needles, tin looking-glasses, little bells, 
combs, Vermillion, necklaces and bracelets were profitably ex- 
changed, although the barter was made ostensibly in the nature of 
an exchange of gifts. Says Radisson: "We gave them several gifts 
and received many. They bestowed upon us above 300 robs of cas- 
tors" (beavers). 

How far south of the Wisconsin river Radisson and his brother- 
in-law went in their journeys is a matter of conjecture. Benja- 
min Suite, a leading Canadian historian, who has made a close 
study of Radisson's journal, believes that they wintered in the 
neighborhood of Milwaukee, if not Chicago, in 1658-59. 

The two Frenchmen had many more adventures after this. T3iey 
wandered to the country of the Sioux, and claim to have gone as far 
as Hudson's bay. After many adventures they returned to Mon- 
treal. 

Their subsequent experiences are full of incident, but do not 
pertain to Wisconsin history. Alternating in allegiance between the 
French and English, as their interests dictated, finally they made 
England their home. Both are believed to have died in that 
country. 




French Pony Cart. 



CHAPTER III. 

RULE OF THE FOREST RANGER. 

Whex, on the 19th day of August in the year 1660, the intrepid 
Radisson and his brother-in-law, Groseilliers, returned from Wis- 
consin to Montreal, they were accompanied by 300 Indians and sixty 
canoes loaded with 

Furs of bison and of beaver, 
Furs of sable and of ermine. 

The Indian flotilla created the greatest excitement in Montreal. 
Every young Frenchman there dreamed of riches to be found in the 
forests of the Wisconsin region, for to New France the fur trade 
was what the mines of the Southwest were to the Spaniards. The 
population of New France had at this time a large admixture of 
ruined sprigs of nobility and disbanded soldiers. Without kith or 
Mn to tie them to domestic hearthstones, these soldiers of fortune 
turned the prows of their birch-bark canoes westward in search of 
adventures among the children of the forest. They became known 
as coureurs de bois (rangers of the woods), and with utter disregard 
of the hazards that threatened and hardships that must be endured, 
the adventurers penetrated to the most remote regions of the lake 
country. 

The coureur de bois was the most picturesque character in the 
history of this region. For a century and a half he and the more 
modern fur trader, of whom he was the prototype, were the most 
potent factors in the discoveries that preceded settlement. The traf- 
fic in peltries was lucrative, the roving life, free from restraint, had 
charms that appealed with peculiar fascination to the ardent French 
temperament, and the numbers of the coureurs de bois constantly 
increased. Unlike the sturdy Saxon, whose meeting with the abo- 
rigines meant the survival of the fittest, the easy-going Frenchman 
did not seek to crowd the Indian from his place. Instead he adapted 
himself to the customs and habits of the red man, and became half 
Indian himself. "Divested of all the proprieties of his former civi- 
lized life, painted and tattooed, with feathered hat and beaded gar- 
ments, he gaily danced with the braves or gravely smoked the calu- 
met at the council of the tribe." 

In the lodges of the chiefs he wooed and won the dusky maidens 
of the woods; if, perhaps, in his wandering journeys from tribe to 
tribe, the fancy seized him, he did not scruple to take to wife as 
many of them as there were villages in which he tarried — there were 
no inconvenient laws of civilization to deter him from following the 
example of the jolly tar who had a wife in every port. 

Sometimes there came upon the coureur de bois a longing to I'e- 
turn to the settlements of the St. Lawrence. With his accumulated 



The Story of the State. 



53 



store of beaver furs he made his way along the water courses until 
he came to such a place. Then, disposing of his merchandise, he 




COUREURS DE BOIS CAROUSING. 
AFTER A SKETCH BY PTLE, IN HARPER'S. 

(The scene represents the jollification of the wood rangers upon their return 
from the forests of Wisconsin, where they have secured valuable furs.) 

sought the company of boon companions for a season of wild gayety 
that lasted till his empty purse made necessary a return to the home 



54 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

of the beaver and the lodge of the Indian. While his money lasted 
he abandoned himself to the wild carousal of the frontier tavern. 

After a time the French authorities tried to suppress the lawless 
rangers of the woods, deeming their barter for furs an infringement 
on the rights of the government. Severe repressive measures did not 
deter the unlicensed traffic, and then the French authorities tried to 
regulate it by stipulating how many canoes would be permitted to 
engage in it. There were three men with each canoe. Despite their 
disregard of law, the rangers proved of great service to their gov- 
ernment, for everywhere they went they made friends of the In- 
dians. This friendship for the French remained steadfast in the case 
of every Algonkin tribe but one — the Fox Indians of Wisconsin. The 
lawless coureur de bois thus became the advance guard who spread 
for France the great arteries of trade in the Western country. 

A century later the coureur de bois was no longer the independ- 
ent ranger who yielded obedience to neither king nor potentate; he 
had become the modern voyageur of forest commerce. Instead of 
following the dictates of his fickle fancy, he went here or there at 
the behest of his employer. His work Vv^as to ply the paddle while on 
the stream and to carry the burden when making a portage. 

The French coureur de bois, using the language of cultivated 
France, had been succeeded by the half-breed oarsman, speaking the 
patois which French and Indian ancestors had contributed as his 
only legacy. 

These voyageurs, some of whom were to be encountered in Wis- 
consin as late as fifty years ago, were in their way as picturesque 
characters as the earlier specimens of coureurs de bois. Clad in 
shirts of red flannel or leather, with tasseled caps of vivid coloring 
hanging over on one side, they manned conoe and barge as though a 
part of the craft. Like a thing instinct with life, the canoe sped 
through the water with tireless velocity. The muscles of the voy- 
ageurs were bands of steel; from the hour when a gray line in the 
east proclaimed the coming dawn till the sun sank in the west in 
roseate splendor, they sped the craft forward. 

As the voyageurs plied the paddle, they chanted songs in rhyth- 
mic unison with the motion. These songs, once begun, seemed to 
have no end, and one verse seemed like the others of the intermin- 
able number. Love was usually the theme, though sometimes the 
stillness of the forest brought a softening mood upon the men, and 
the ditty gave way to the ballad and elegy. Mellowed by distance, 
these boat songs, with their accompanying sound of the oar, fell upon 
the ear with cadence of indescribable sweetness. The plaintive 
melody of the voyageur's chanson cannot be reproduced by giving 
the words, but the quaint rhyming has an interest, too. Mrs. Mary 
A. Krum of Madison has happily rendered in English the words of 
one of these popular ditties of the voyageur: 



The Story of the State. 55 

Each returning springtime 

Brings so much that's new, 
All the fickle lovers 
Changing sweethearts too. 
The good wine soothes and gives me rest. 
While love inspires and fills my breast. 
All the fickle lovers 

Changing sweethearts still, 
I'll keep mine forever, 
Those may change who will. 
The good wine soothes and gives me rest, 
While love inspires and fills my breast. 
Etc., etc. 
It was well for the more modern voyageur that he could find 
sweet solace in song, for in many respects his life was one of few 
compensations for toil and hardship. Paddling from dawn to dusk, 
seldom stopping for a midday meal, his daily rations were a quart 
of hulled corn and a piece of sea biscuit, with a half pint of bear's 
grease. The corn served, with a piece of pork, for boiling a kind of 
soup, and this he ate with zest, as he munched his hard biscuit. 
Sometimes he varied the bill of fare by using pease or beans in 
place of hulled corn when boiling his bouillon or soup. The well- 
known traveler, Alexander Henry, whom Mrs. Mary Hartwell Cath- 
erwood has made her hero in her charmingly told story of "The 
White Islander," was an interesting observer of Wisconsin life In 
1776. He wrote in his journal concerning the voyageur of his day: 
"A bushel of hulled corn with two pounds of fat is reckoned to be 
a month's subsistence. No other allowance is made of any kind, not 
even salt, and bread is never thought of." 

•What a contrast from the life led by his progenitor — the wild, 
lawless, untrammeled forest ranger of the seventeenth century. 




Plow Used a Hundred Years Ago. 



CHAPTER IV. 

A PRINCE OF COUREURS DE BOIS. 

Of the company of coureurs de bois whose favorite abiding place 
was Wisconsin, none became as famous as Nicholas Perrot. Daniel 
Greysolon du L'hut and his cousin, Henry de Tonty, "the man with 
the iron hand," played a more conspicuous part in the exploration 
of the Western country, but neither was so closely associated with 
events on Wisconsin soil. The oldest memorial in Wisconsin, to-day, 
of white man's occupation here, is a soleil wrought in silver and pre- 
sented by Perrot to the Jesuit mission at Green Bay in 1686. This 
ancient relic was unearthed by workmen ninety-five years ago, while 
digging a foundation, and is now in the possession of the Wisconsin 
Historical society at Madison. 

Long before he thought of giving to the mission on the Fox 
this Catholic emblem, Perrot had become familiar with the region 
around Green Bay. Of his earlier years little is known, except that 
he attached himself to the wandering missionaries as a hunter to 
provide for their wants while they were threading the woods in 
search of converts. He was about 21 years old when, in 1665, he 
came West and made the acquaintance of the Wisconsin Indians. 
He obtained an extraordinary influence over them. It was of the 
greatest importance to French interests that the Western Indians 
should remain at peace with each other, and the authorities at Mon- 
treal entrusted to Perrot the delicate role of peacemaker. The In- 
dians living in what is now Northwestern Wisconsin have been well 
described as "a race unsteady as aspens, and fierce as wild cats; full 
of mutual jealousies, without rulers and without laws." Perrot suc- 
ceeded remarkably well in pacifying the unruly nomads of forest 
and prairie. He built a number of rude stockades, or forts, in Wis- 
consin. One was Fort St. Antoine, on the Wisconsin shore of Lake 
Pepin, traces of which fort were visible four decades ago; another 
was near the present site of Trempealeau, where but a few years since 
was discovered the hearth and* fireplace that he had built two hun- 
dred years before. Fort St. Francis was built by Perrot near the future 
site of Prairie du Chien; he also built a fort near the lead mines, 
which he discovered while traveling among the tribes to prevent an 
alliance with the Iroquois Indians, who were friendly to the Eng- 
lish. The Miamis presented him with a packet of beaver skins and 
a piece of lead ore, and thus called his attention to the presence of 
the metal in Southwestern Wisconsin. 

Perrot played an important part in an imposing ceremony that 
occurred in 1671 at Sault Ste. Marie, when the French commander, St. 
Lusson, formally took possession of the entire Western country. 

56 



The Story of the State. 



57 



Representatives of fourteen tribes of Indians were present, Nicholas 
Perrot having gathered them from the Wisconsin and Hudson Bay 
regions for this purpose. The ceremony was an elaborate affair, 
well calculated to impress the savages with the importance of the 
French. A hole had been dug, and into this was placed one end of 
a huge wooden cross. This was surrounded by the splendidly- 




Perrot's Soleil. 

(Found at Green Bay by Workmen Engaged in Digging a Foundation. Now in 

Possession of the Wisconsin Historical Society.) 



dressed officers and their soldiers, and led by the black-gowned 
Jesuit priests of the company, the uncovered Frenchmen began to 
chant the seventh century hymn beginning thus: 

"Vexilla Regis proderunt 
Fulget crucis mysterium," etc. 

As the sound of their hoarse voices died away, St. Lusson ad- 
vanced to a post erected near the cross, and as the royal arms of 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



France engraved on a tablet of lead were nailed thereon, he lifted 
a sod, bared his sword and dramatically took possession of the soil 
in the name of the Grand Monarque, Louis XIV., styled "the Mag- 
nificent." A priest offered a prayer for his most Christian majesty, 
another hymn was sung, and Father Claude AUouez treated tne 
somewhat astonished tribesmen to a long address. St. Lusson, in 
taking possession, claimed for the king of France "Lakes Huron and 
Superior, the island of Manitoulin and all countries, rivers, lakes 
and streams contiguous and adjacent thereunto; both those which 
have been discovered and those which may be discovered hereafter, 
in all their length and breadth, bounded on the one side by the seas 
of the north and of the west, and on the other by the South sea." 

"Long live the king," came from the brazen throats of the sol- 
diers as the ceremony was concluded, and the painted savages 
howled in sympathy. 

Hardly had St. Lusson's gorgeous pageant come to a conclusion, 
when the Indians celebrated on their own account by stealing the 
royal arms. 

Facsimile Autograph of Father Menard. 
(Reue Menard has been called Wisconsin's martyr missionary because in 
seeking his lost sheep, the migratory Huron Indians, about the headwaters of the 
Black River, he lost his life either through exposure and starvation, or by the 
tomahawk. He was the pioneer soldier of the cross in Wisconsin.) 

Fourteen years later Perrot was appointed "commandant of the 
West," and in 1689 repeated on Wisconsin soil the ceremony of tak- 
ing possession in the name of the French king. 

Despite his great influence over the Indians, Perrot had much 
to contend with in his relations with them during the thirty-four 
years that embraced his labors in the West. While at his fort on 
the shore of Lake Pepin, a party of Kickapoos and Mascoutens 
learned that there were but six Frenchmen in charge and planned 
to pillage the post. Learning their plans, Perrot prepared for them. 
Spies came to the fort and asked: "How many French are there?" 

"Forty," was the reply. "More are expected from a buffalo hunt. 
Our guns are well loaded and our knives are sharpened." 

Six chiefs came in apparent friendship and were admitted to the 
fort. Being divested of their arms, they were taken into Perrot's 
hut of logs, where meat was given to eat and tobacco to smoke. 
Loaded guns were placed conveniently within reach of the French- 
men. These the conspirators eyed suspiciously. 

"Is Metaminens afraid of his children?" they asked Perrot in sim- 
ulated reproach. 

"No." 

"Then he is displeased." 



The Story of the State. 59 



"I have good reason to be," said Perrot sternly. "The spirit has 
warned me of your designs; you will rob me of my goods and put 
me in the kettle. The spirit told me to be on my guard and he 
would help me." 

Surprised that their plans were known, the chiefs confessed the 
plot, and when their warriors came next morning, one of them 
shouted to them from the gate of the fort: "Do not advance, or 
you are dead. The spirit has warned Metaminens." 

Perrot gave the chiefs two kettles and a few other presents, and 
they departed. 

On another occasion thievish Indians had stolen a box of goods. 
Perrot ordered the goods returned at once, or he would dry up their 
rice marshes and visit dire punishment upon them. To show them 
that he possessed supernatural powers, he ordered a cup of water to 
be brought to him. Pouring some brandy into it, he set fire to the 
liquor. Terrified by the sight of the burning liquid and believing 
Metaminens capable of any miracle, they restored the stolen goods. 

His boldness saved some Indian prisoners of the Ottawas from 
the torture of the stake. The unhappy captives had already run the 
gauntlet, and those who had fallen beneath the blows of the sticks 
wielded by the double row of women and young men had been con- 
demned to be burned. As they sang the death dirge, Perrot ap- 
peared among them and commanded them to cease the song. Im- 
patient at the interruption, the braves commanded their victims to 
continue. Perrot boldly declared: 

"I came to cut the strings of the dogs. I will not suffer them to 
be eaten. You Ottawas are like tame bears, who will not recognize 
them who have brought them up. You have forgotten the protection 
of Onontio (the governor of New France). When he asks your obe- 
dience you want to rule over him, and eat the flesh of those chil- 
dren he does not wish to give you. Take care, Onontio will tear 
them with violence from between your teeth." 

Perrot's attitude had the desired effect and the bands of the 
prisoners were cut. 

At one time Perrot had a narrow escape from being tortured at 
the stake. He was rescued before the torch had been applied to the 
fagots. 

Perrot wrote an account of his experiences, but it was not 
printed until 1864. An English translation has never been published. 
Perrot's Memoire gives an interesting account of his experiences and 
of the customs of the savages. He gives a vivid picture of an Indian 
feast and war dance, as practiced in Wisconsin two centuries and a 
half ago. A translation of a part of this description is here given: 

After describing the contents of the war bag, or "pindikossan," 
consisting of the skins of owls, snakes, white birds, parrots, magpies 
and other animals, he goes on to say: "Before the feast they always 
fast, without either eating or drinkmg until they have had a dream. 



60 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



During this fast they blacken their face, shoulders and breast with 
coal; they smoke, however. Some are said to have fasted twelve 
consecutive days — which seems incredible — and others less." 

After elaborate ceremonials and the eating of dog's flesh, an In- 
dian delicacy, the master of ceremonies, who is armed with bow and 
quiver of arrows, as well as a javelin, "assumes a most furious look, 
entones his war song, and at each syllable that he pronounces makes 
most horrible contortions of head and body — the most terrible that 
can be seen. After him all the guests, one after another, endeavor to 
outdo one another in assuming most furious appearances. While 
singing, some fill their plates with hot ashes and burning coals, 
which they throw upon the spectators, who vociferate in chorus with 




Wooden Anchor of the Voyageurs. 

(Picture of a Wooden Anchor Found at Green Bay and now in the Possession of 

the Wisconsin Historical Society.) 



a very strong but slow voice, 'Ouiy!' Others seize fire-brands and 
throw them up into the air; others, again, act as if they were going 
to tomahawk the spectators. These last are obliged to repair the 
affront offered to him whom they feigned to strike, by making him 
a present of vermillion, knife or some other object of like value. 
Only such warriors as have slain or captured an enemy are allowed 
to act in this manner. These feints signify that it was thus the 
enemy was slain." 

After some more shouting and grimacing, the best of the feast 
is given to the guests. "Above all," adds Perrot, "everyone must 
come provided with his own plate; otherwise he would not get his 
share. Hence they never fail in this, the Indian being naturally too 
gluttonous to forget on an occasion like this to fill well his belly." 



The Story of the State. 



61 



The declining years of Perrot's life were spent on the banks of 
the St. Lawrence. In his old age he was neglected by the govern- 
ment for which he had toiled and borne hardships so many years. 
He was about 75 years of age when his career came to a close. 



Facsimile Autograph of Claude Allouez. 

(It is not known where or when Allouez was born. He reached Canada seven 
years before he came to Wisconsin. He not only founded every Jesuit Mission 
in this State, but wandered into the Illinois country, and started several mis- 
sions there. The great explorer, La Salle, became a bitter enemy of Allouez, 
claiming that the Jesuit attempted to excite against his enterprises the enmity 
of the Wisconsin Indians. It is certainly true that on several occasions Indians 
from Wisconsin frustrated the plans of La Salle, but it has not been established 
beyond doubt that the influence of Allouez was responsible. La Salle and the 
Jesuits were bitterly hostile in their relations and Allouez on two occasions pre- 
cipitately left the French fort on the Illinois because La Salle was expected there.) 



CHAPTER V. 

THE BLACK GOWNS AND THEIR WANDERINGS. 

The story of the Jesuit missionaries, contemporary wanderers of 
the coureurs de bois in Wisconsin as in other parts of the New 
World, can be read "on ancient worm-eaten pages, between the cov- 
ers of begrimed parchment." Bancroft's oft-quoted sentence that 
in the new world "not a cape was turned, not a river entered, but a 
Jesuit led the way," is based on error. The soldier of fortune came 
with the sword before the soldier of the cross came with the cruci- 
fix, but the man of peace was close on the heels of the man of war, 
and frequently they were together. 

The Jesuit priest was the historian of this early period. These 
wandering black-gowns, as the Indians termed them, were required 
to report periodically to their superior, and their reports were col- 
lated and printed in Paris. Annually, from 1632 till 1672, these an- 
nals of the New World came from the press. The lawless rangers 
of the woods, with a few notable exceptions like Radisson and Per- 
rot, did not commit to paper their experiences and impressions, and 
thus the relations of the Jesuits have come to be almost sole author- 
ity for an authentic narrative of this interesting period of North- 
western history. These printed Relations in the course of time be- 
came scattered and lost; but one complete set is known to exist in 
America, and that is in the fire-proof vaults of Lenox library. 

Nearly all of the little volumes known as the Jesuit Relations 
came from the press of the French king's printer. They were issued 
during the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, styled "the Magnifi- 
cent," and the dissolute members of his frivolous court eagerly read 
the narrative of hideous torture at the stake, and other cruelties 
practiced upon the devoted wanderers of the wilderness who were 
seeking converts among the heathen red men. In "bewigged, be- 
ruflfled, bepowdered France" there were not wanting pious zealots 
who eagerly furnished the means whereby these men of religion, as 
well as explorers with more material aims, might be enabled to 
prosecute their journeyings; thus New France was soon dotted with 
the isolated bark chapels built by the black-gowned missionaries. 
Amid the somber pine's of the New World there was heard, to the 
refrain of rustling branches and rippling streams, the chanting of 
the same old seventeenth century hymns that in the Old World 
filled the vast spaces of classic cathedrals; in the rude bark chapel, 
half-starved priests suffering from the rigor of the climate and the 
cruelties of the natives, intoned the" simple service; in the great 
cathedrals of France, titled prelates in gleaming vestments per- 
formed the service, while the jubilant voices of the surpliced choir 
carried the hymns to the congregation. 

62 



The Story of the State. 



63 



Devoted to their calling as they undoubtedly were, oblivious to 
physical discomfort, willing to endure privations and to face death, 
in order to win to their faith a few miserable savages, the mission- 
aries had, too, all the prejudices of their age. For forty years they 








Ml i ■ ' 

i Jh fife 




PERB MARQUETTE. 
AFTER THE TRENTANOVE STATUE IN THE OLD HALL OF CONGRESS. 

(No portrait of Marquetto is known to exist. The face of the priest is purely 
the poetic creation of the sculptor. The garb, it is claimed, is historically correct, 
Signer Trentanove having received the assistance of the Jesuits of Paris in 
obtaining the necessary information.) 

wrote their Relations, and in all that time they carefully excluded 
from their pages all reference to achievements in which they had 
no part. In all the history of Western exploration no figure looms 
so conspicuously as that of Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. Not 
a line of the Relations bears his name, though his great discoveries 



64 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



were contemporaneous with Jesuit effort for twenty years. There 
are long and tedious descriptions of baptisms, intelligent observa- 
tions on soil and climate and topography, graphic pictures of savage 
customs and vivid narratives of personal experience; but nowhere is 
there even an allusion to La Salle or any other man hostile to the 
order. 




Old Church on Madaline Island. 
(Tourists who visit the Apostle group of islands are told that the old church 
on Madaline Island is the one built in 1665 by Claude Allouez. This is fiction. 
The chapel constructed by Allouez was on the mainland, and some miles in the 
interior; the church on the island was built by Bishop Baraga early in the pres- 
ent century. All traces of Allouez's chapel have long since disappeared.) 



CHAPTER VI. 

UNSOLVED MYSTERY OF FATHER MENARD'S DEATH. 

Inseparably associated with, the history of Wisconsin are the 
names of three Jesuits — Claude Allouez, Rene Menard and James 
Marquette. Menard was the pioneer, and he met death in the region 
drained by Black river. When he came to Wisconsin, in 1660, he 
was an old man. He seemed to have a premoniiion of his sad fate. 

"I write to you probably the last word, and I desire it to be the 
seal of our friendship until eternity," he wrote a friend on the eve 
of his departure. "In three or four months you may put me in the 
memento of the dead, considering the manner of living of these 
people and my age and weak constitution." 

From the wilds of Wisconsin the aged missionary wrote to his 
superior at Quebec an account of his hardships. His Indian com- 
panions treated him badly. "They required me to carry on my 
shoulders very heavy packs, and although my paddle, wielded by 
hands as feeble as mine, did but little service towards hastening the 
journey, they would not allow it to be idle." 

Provisions became scarce and the aged missionary was aban- 
doned with three Indians. "We have everyone of us kept fast, and 
that a rigorous one," he wrote. "Happy those who find a certain 
kind of moss which grows on rocks and of which they make a black 
broth. As for moose skins, those who had some left ate them 
stealthily. Everything seems palatable when a person is hungry." 

But the worst was to come. For six days they were reduced to 
subsisting on soup from grounded bone and earth saturated with the 
blood of animals that had been killed there. Finally a band of In- 
dians, more compassionate than the others, took the old man with 
them to their wintering station on Keweenaw bay on the south 
shore of Lake Superior. Here he started a mission. 

It was while on his way towards distant pagan tribes of whom 
he had heard that Father Menard lost his life. Undeterred by the 
description given him of the country to be traversed — "an almost 
continual series of swamps, in which soundings had to be taken lest 
one might get himself inextricably engulfed," and where the traveler, 
"winding his way through dense swarms of mosquitoes, would not 
find anywhere in those dismal regions means of living" — Father 
Menard undertook the journey to the headwaters of the Black river 
of Wisconsin. 

"It is my hope," he wrote, "to die on the way." It was his last 
letter, and it was prophetic. 

The Relation of 1663 tells how Father Menard died while seek- 
ing his lost sheep, the migratory Hurons. He set out in July, 1661, 

65 



'66 Leading Events of ^yiscon.'<in History. 

with a French companion and a party of Indians. Before long the 
latter brutally abandoned the two Frenchmen, who pushed on as 
best they could. While following his companion, Father Menard be- 
•came lost. The Frenchman, when he missed him, called him, fired 
his gun as a signal, and made a search — all in vain. Reaching a 
Huron village, he sought their aid in the search. At this juncture a 
young warrior rushed into camp, crying: "To arms, to arms! I 
have just encountered the enemy!" The Hurons at this abandoned 
all thought of the lost missionary. 

"Behold him thus abandoned, but still in the hands of divine 
Providence," The Relation goes on to say, "which doubtless has 
given him strength in this extremity to endure with constancy the 
bereavement of all human assistance, while constantly assailed by 
the piercing bills of mosquitoes, the numbers of .which in these quar- 
ters are frigthtful. Thus the poor father, stretched upon the earth, or 
perhaps on some rock, lay exposed to the sharp bills of these little 
tyrants, and as long as he survived continued to suffer this torment, 
to which hunger and other miseries finally put an end." 

It is not unlikely that the tomahawk of a predatory Sioux ended 
the life of the Jesuit missionary, for his cassock and kettle were 
found later in the lodge of an Indian. The cause of his death will 
ever remain a mystery. 




Facsimile Autograph of Louis Joliet. 
(Posterity has insisted on eliminating one of the I's from Joliet's name. The 
Illinois city named after the great explorer was in a quandary as to the proper 
orthography until its city fathers solemnly decided the question by resolution.) 



CHAPTER VII. 

PLANTING THE JESUIT MISSIONS. 

The first mission on Wisconsin soil was established by Father 
Allouez at Chequamegon, in 1665. Lake Superior was then called 
Lake Tracy, and the region was known as the land of the Outaouacs 
(Ottawas). In that year four hundred Indians of various tribes had 
gone to Three Rivers on the St. Lawrence, to the great fur mart. As 
they were about to return to their forest homes, Allouez determined 
to accompany them, and embarked with three other Frenchmen. 

"The devil formed all opposition imaginable to our voyage," he 
afterwards noted in his journal. "One of their leading men declared 
to me his will and that of his people, in arrogant terms and with 
threats of abandoning me on some desolate island, if I dared follow 
them any further." 

The treatment Father Allouez received from the Indians was 
similar to that which poor Father Menard had experienced; they 
compelled him to carry heavy packs and to paddle till his strengtn 
gave out. "'I imagined myself a malefactor con(Jemned to the gal- 
leys," he wrote. 

The Indians took a fancy to his raiment, and his journal con- 
tains this melancholy chronicle: "The litttle account they made of 
me was the cause of their stealing my clothes from me, and I had 
great trouble to keep my hat, the rim of which appeared to them 
very good to protect themselves from the excessive heat of the sun. 
At night my pilot took a blanket that I had and used it for a pillow, 
obliging me to pass the night without any other covering than the 
foliage of some tree. When in addition to these hardships hunger 
comes, it is a very severe suffering, which soon taught me to take a 
liking to most bitter roots and decayed meat. It pleased God to 
make me endure the greatest hunger on Fridays, for which I most 
gladly thank Him." 

Sometimes the missionary went supperless to sleep on his couch 
of leaves or bed of rock. When he was given something with which 
to dull his sharpened appetite, he fared but ill, judging from his de- 
scription: "I had to inure myself to eat a certain moss which grows 
on rocks. It is a kind of leaf in the shape of a shell, which is 
always covered with caterpillars and spiders. When boiled, it makes 
an insipid black and sticky broth, which serves rather to keep 
death away than to impart life." 

At Chequamegon bay (probably between the modern cities of 
Ashland and Washburn), a dozen or more miles inland, Allouez 
selected the site of his mission, and built a wigwam of bark. This 
humble shelter was the first place of worship in Wisconsin, as Rad- 

'67 



"68 Leading Events of Wisconsin Historu. 

isson's frail fort constructed hard by a few years before was the 
iirst human habitation in Wisconsin built by white men. 

The field was not particularly fitted for the purpose of a mis 
sion. At the head of the bay was an Indian village of several hun- 
dred lodges, and in the neighboring fields ears of Indian maize 
gleamed yellow in the October sun. Here were gathered the men 
of seven tribes. Allouez found them in commotion, as the wilder 
spirits were putting on war paint for an expedition against the 
warlike Sioux. The old men did not want them to dig up the toma- 
hawk and convened a great council, at which the priest made a 
fervent address and produced a good irupression. He dissuaded 
them by liberal presents from undertaking their scalping party. 

La Pointe du Saint Esprit (Mission of the Holy Ghost) was the 
name given by Allouez to his chapel of bark. As long as the In- 
dians considered the presence of a white man a novelty, they flocked 
to his humble place of worship; when that wore off, the Jesuit 
father found his lot all but pleasant. For the medicine men, with 
whom he appears to have had many controversial conflicts, he had 
a genuine feeling of abomination. In his journal he calls them 
"jugglers," and gives an interesting account of some of their super- 
stitious ceremonies. "There is here," says he, "a false and abom- 
inable religion, similar in many things to that of some ancient 
pagans. I have seen an Idol set up in the middle of a village, to 
which, among other presents, they offered ten dogs in sacriflce, that 
this false god might vouchsafe to banish elsewhere a malady which 
was depopulating the village. 

"For the rest, as these people are dull, they do not acknowledge 
any deity purely spiritual. They believe that the sun is a man and 
the moon is his wife; that snow and ice are also human beings, who 
go away in the spring and come back again in winter; that the devil 
dwells in snakes, dragons and other monsters; that crows, hawks 
and some other birds are manitous and talk as well as we do, pre- 
tending there are some Indians who understand thei^ language just 
a? some of them understand a little French." 

Four years among the Indians at Chequamegon discouraged 
Father Allouez. Conversions were few and the life was hard. He 
called the place a very Babylon, and the sorceries of the medicine 
men he termed "diabolical juggleries." He threatened the sorcerers 
with the fires of hell, and one of them responded with incantations 
which were intended to effect the death of the Black Gown. The 
medicine man kept up his ceremonies for three hours, but the 
health of the missionary continued good. As the incantations 
failed, the medicine men became personally aggressive. The bark 
walls of the church were torn away, the missionary's goods were 
stolen and his life was made uncomfortable in many ways. Allouez 
bore the treatment patiently awhile longer and then abandoned the 
post. He was succeeded by Father James Marquette. 



The moru of the State. 69 



Next Allouez founded a mission at Green Bay (1669) and called 
It St. Francis Xavier. Two years later it was removed to the site of 
the present city of De Pere, and in 1676 Father Albanel built a fine 
church there. Nicholas Perrot presented to this church the silver 
soliel or ostensorium which workmen unearthed at the beginning of 
this century. 

Allouez journeyed thence to the villages of the Fire Nation on 
the Fox. When he reached the site of Appleton he saw an eclipse of 
the sun. Where Oshkosh has been built he said mass, then pro- 
ceeded up the Wolf river. Among the Reynards he established the 
Mission of St. Mark. These Indians were too much concerned with 
recent troubles to pay much attention to their visitor, for but two 
■days before a scalping party of Iroquois had surprised one of their 
villages, slain a hundred of their people and carried away as cap- 
tives thirty of their women. 

On the upper Fox, Allouez preached the gospel and founded the 
Mission of St. James. Among the Menomonees, near the mouth of 
the river bearing their name, the Mission of St. Michael was begun 
by him, and another mission he located on the eastern shore of 
Green Bay. 

For a quarter of a century the "father of Wisconsin missions" 
devoted himself to his numerous charges, with some success. It ia 
recorded that 2,000 Indians embraced the Christian faith as the re- 
sult of his labors and that of his co-workers The missions in the 
vicinity of Green Bay he left in charge of Father Louis Andre, who 
appears to have had a genius for dealing with the untutored sav- 
ages. The Relations of 1671 and 1672 tell how with a flute he taught 
the Indian children to sing the canticles of the Catholic church, and 
then marched them through the villages preaching to their elders 
through the medium of their youthful voices. 

"Certain spiritual songs which he sung to the children with 
French airs," the Relation goes on to say, "pleased these savagfiS 
extremely; in such a manner, that in the streets and in the cabins 
our mysteries were made public and were received there with ap- 
plause, and insensibly stamped themselves on the mind by means of 
these canticles. This success gave courage to the father, and caused 
him to resolve on attacking the men through the children, and to 
combat with Idolatry by these innocent souls. In effect he composed 
canticles against the superstitions of which we have spoken, and 
against the voices most opposed to Christianity, and having taught 
them to the children by the sound of a soft flute, he went every- 
where with his little savage musicians, declaring war against the 
jugglers, the dreamers, and those who had many wives; and because 
the savages passionately loved their children and suffered every- 
thing from them, they allowed the reproaches, although biting, 
which were made to them by these songs, inasmuch as they pro- 
ceeded from the mouths of their children. It happened sometimes. 



70 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

that as the father was obliged in the heat of dispute to refute the 
errors of these superstitious people, and to convince the old men of 
the falsity and silliness of their idolatry, it happened, I say, that 
this troop of children tired of hearing such disputes, threw them- 
selves among them and sounding their canticles, obliged their par- 
ents to be silent. This gave the father much joy, who saw that 
God made use of these innocent mouths to confound the impiety of 
their own parents." 

Father Marquette found the Indians at Chequamegon as obdu- 
rate as had Allouez. It was not an inviting field to which the young 
French priest had come. The Indians were not of one tribe, and 
some of them were inclined to provoke their Sioux neighbors on the 
West to war, as they had threatened to do when Allouez first cam& 
among them. Finally hostilities began, in 1671, and the invincible 
Sioux scattered the warriors at the Bay like leaves before a blast of 
autumn. Among the fugitives were the Tobacco Indians (a branch 
of the Huron tribe) and these sought refuge oh the island of Mich- 
ilimackinac. There they had made their home when some years be- 
fore they abandoned their Eastern habitation to escape the furious 
onslaught of the Five Nations. To this asylum, Marquette accom- 
panied them on the migration, and on the mainland opposite he 
founded the mission of St. Ignace. He did not again become identi- 
fied with Wisconsin events until, two years later, he accompanied 
Joliet on his famous expedition to the Mississippi. 

For one hundred and seventy years the Mission of the Holy 
Ghost remained abandoned, until Bishop Baraga, in 1832, re-estab- 
lished it on Madaline island. 



!/uecr^ 7na^yrfU.^>^ 



Facsimile Autograph of James Marquette. 
(Although Father Marquette was connected with Wisconsin Missions but a 
few years, and his heart beat warmer for the impressionable Illinois Indians 
than the less ductile savages of Wisconsin, he is popularly identified with this 
State in history. Wisconsin has placed his statue in the National Hall of Statu- 
ary, and his name has been given to a county in this State. Some of the 
exhumed bones of Father Marquette are in the possession of Marquette College,. 
Milwaukee, and are guarded as precious relics.) 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SOLVING THE GREAT WESTERN MYSTERY. 

Where a bend of the upper Fox river approaches nearest a 
curve of the picturesque Wisconsin river, one treads upon historic 
ground. A rain drop falling here may be carried down the latter 
stream into the Mississippi river, and thence into the Gulf of Mex- 
ico; or, perchance, it may flow with the rapid flood of the Fox into 
the volume of the great lakes, over the ledge of Niagara, down the 
St, Lawrence, into the ocean of the north. Between the two streams 
there is a marshy stretch, less than a mile and a half in width, and 
over this portage the Indian was wont to carry his birch bark canoe. 

This portage was the doorway to the upper Mississippi river. 
Jean Nicolet, in 1634, had come to its portal, without entering. 
Claude Allouez a quarter of a century later had stepped upon its 
threshold, but had not ventured further; it was reserved for the 
Sieur Louis Joliet and his priestly companion, James Marquette, to 
discover the upper Mississippi and open an empire of marvelous 
richness to the venturesome Frenchmen who followed. The Mis- 
sissippi river was to be explored and settled, not from the sea as 
were the streams of the Atlantic plain, but as its current flows. 

Long before Joliet's canoe glided from the Wisconsin upon the 
Mississippi river, in 1673, Frenchmen had heard from Indians of the 
existence of the great water. It was a mysterious highway of which 
no white man knew the beginning or the end. It was surmised 
that its waters mingled with those of the Vermilion sea (Gulf of 
California), and some thought that doubtless here was the route 
leading to the "wealth of Ormuz and of Ind." One hundred and 
thirty-one years before, the mailed soldiers of De Soto had consigned 
to the river's bed the body of their dead chieftain; the memory of 
their terrible march remained as a shadowy tradition only. Doubt- 
less in the intervening years others had come to the bank of the 
continent's greatest artery, but if so, no record remains to tell of it. 

To Jean Baptiste Talon, intendant of New France, belongs the 
credit for the conception of the enterprise that led to the discovery 
of the upper Mississippi; to Louis Joliet for the execution of it; to 
James Marquette for the preservation of its incidents in historical 
narrative; to Robert Cavelier, the Sieur de La Salle, the glory be- 
longs of achieving that which made possible the exploration and 
subsequent settlement of the Mississippi valley. 

As the result of an accident whereby Joliet's canoe was over- 
turned and all his notes were lost, Marquette's name has overshad- 
owed his as the discoverer of the upper Mississippi. Joliet was the 

71 



LeadiiKj Emits of Wisconsin History. 



head of the enterprise, and as such is entitled to the distinction. 
Marquette deserves to rank as the historian of the party, for he 
wrote a most readable account of the expedition, and writers of his- 
tory have been compelled, in consequence of the loss of Joliet's 
notes, to rely upon Marquette's narrative. The energetic Talon had 
chosen Joliet to head the important enterprise as a man well fitted 
for the task. He was 30 years old, a Canadian by birth and ac- 
customed from boyhood to a roving, adventurous life. The newly- 
appointed governor of New France, the bluff old Count Frontenac, 
confirmed this choice, and Joliet started on his quest. Frontenac 
wrote to France that "he promised to find the Mississippi by way 
of Green Bay, and that he would probably make it clear that its 
outlet was in the Gulf of California." 




The Griffon. 
(The first vessel that sailed the great lakes was a barque of sixty tons that 
moored at Washington Island, in Green Bay, September, 1679. Shortly after 
leaving Green Bay a terrific storm arose. It is supposed that the Griffon went 
to the bottom with all hands, for she was never seen again.) 



Joliet reached the mission at Michilimackinac (Mackinac) a few 
weeks before Christmas, and decided to winter here. At this time 
Marquette was in charge of the mission of St. Ignace, and as the 
youthful zealot had long wanted to go among the hospitable Illinois 
Indians, he gladly embraced the opportunity of accompanying the 
Canadian envoy. In the long winter nights, as the logs blazed and 
spluttered on the hearthstone, they drew maps and plans as a guide 
for the journey. 

In May, 1673, Joliet and Marquette, accompanied by five French- 
men, left the frontier mission. They occupied two birch bark canoes, 
and their store of provisions consisted of a quantity of Indian corri. 
and smoked beef. When they reached Wisconsin, they first came 
among the People of Wild Oats, to whom some years before Mar- 
quette had preached. Here the travelers heard tales that would 
have dissuaded less determined men from going on. 



The Story of the State. 73 

"They told me," observes Marquette's narrative, " that the Great 
river was exceedingly dangerous and full of frightful monsters who 
devoured men and canoes together; and that the heat was so great 
that it would surely cause our death; that there is even a demon 
there, who can be heard from afar, who stops the passage and en- 
gulfs all who dare approach." 

At Green Bay — then known as the Bay des Puans — the travelers 
noted a phenomenon that later puzzled scientists — tides that ebbed 
and flowed as do those of the ocean. As they journeyed up the Fox 
river, myriads of waterfowl, bustards, duck and teal, rose on wing 
above the great fields of wild oats whereon they were feeding. The 
voyageurs plucked the herb which an Indian told them was an in- 
fallible antidote against the poison that lies in the fang of a snake. 
The French called the plant, which produces several stalks about 
a foot long, and has pretty long leaves and a white blossom re-r 
sembling the gilly-flower, "serpant-a-sonnettes." The Indians 
chewed the root of it to prevent the poison of snakes from taking 
effect. Snakes are said to have such an antipathy to this herb that 
they flee from one rubbed with it, and two or three drops of its es- 
sence, if placed in a snake's mouth, proves fatal to the reptile. 

In the town of the Fire Nation the travelers found cordial wel- 
come. These people lived in cabins of rushes, and in hunting time 
they could roll them up and carry them away easily. The great 
cross erected by Allouez in this village a few years before still stood 
in the midst of the town. A famine had threatened the Indians, and 
in gratitude to the Great Manitou for averting the misfortune, the 
Indians had adorned the wooden cross with white skins, red belts 
and bows and arroAvs. 

The companions were now near the portage, and two guides 
showed the way through the labyrinth of marshes and lakelets 
choked with waving greenery, for the river here wai3 found so cov- 
ered with wild oats as to make it almost impossible to follow the 
channel. They helped also to transport their canoes. 

At last they were on the threshold of the great discovery. 

As the canoes floated down the beautiful Meskousing, as Mar- 
quette's narrative terms the Wisconsin, they passed vine-clad islets, 
bunches of wild grapes peeping from beneath the foliage of the 
trees, in tempting profusion. Along the banks hill, wood and prai- 
rie succeeded each other in variety pleasing to the eye. Startled 
deer scampered away from their drinking places, and the large- 
antlered moose in large numbers attracted the attention of the 
Frenchmen. 

On the 17th of June, 1673, the two canoes entered the Mississippi 
river. With beating hearts, the travelers paddled with the current, 
to explore the mysterious region towards the South. 

Would they reach the Yellow sea? Where would the current 
land them? 



74 Leading Eccnts of Wisconsin History. 

Prepared, by the tales that had been told them, for surprising 
experiences, they were not a little startled when they met, as the 
chronicle of the priest narrates, "a monstrous fish, which struck so 
violently against our canoe that I took it for a large tree about to 
knock us to pieces." 

This was doubtless the catfish of the Mississippi, which is known 
to grow to an enormous size, and which strikes with great force any 
object in its way. On another occasion they saw what was probably 
an American tiger-cat. To the alarmed canoeists it appeared to be 
"a monster with the head of a tiger, a pointed snout like a wild- 
cat's, a beard and ears erect, a grayish head and neck all black." 

Coming to the prairie country, they saw on the banks great 
herds of buffalo, or pisikious as the narrative terms them: "Our 
men having killed one, three of us had considerable trouble in mov- 
ing it. The head is very large, the forehead flat, and a foot and a 
half broad between the horns, which are exactly like those of our 
cattle, except that they are black and much larger. Under the neck 
there is a kind of large crop hanging down, and on the back a pretty 
high hump. The whole head, the neck, and part of the shoulders 
are covered with a great mane like a horse's; it is a crest a foot 
long, which renders them hideous, and falling over their eyes, pre- 
vents their seeing before them. The rest of the body is covered 
with a coarse curly hair like the wool of our sheep, but much 
stronger and thicker. It falls in summer, and the skin is then as 
soft as velvet. At this time the Indians employ the skins to make 
beautiful robes, which they paint of various colors; the flesh and 
fat of the pisikious are excellent, and constitute the best dish in 
banquets. They are very flerce, and not a year passes without their 
killing some Indian. When attacked, they take a man with their 
horns, if they can, lift him up and then dash him on the ground, 
trample on him and kill him. When you fire at them from a dis- 
tance with a gun or bow, you must throw yourself on the ground as 
soon as you fire, and hide in the grass; for, if they perceive the one 
who fired, they rush on him and attack him. As their feet are large 
and rather short, they do not generally go very fast, except when 
they are irritated. They are scattered over the prairies like herds 
of cattle. I have seen a band of 400." 

The Menomonee or AVild-Race Indians of Wisconsin had told 
the priest about a terrible monster that would be encountered. Mar- 
quette tells how they found this fabled demon of the river; in fact, 
several of them: ''As we coasted along the rocks frightful for their 
height and length, we saw two monsters painted on one of these 
rocks, which startled us at first, and on which the boldest Indian 
dare not gaze long. They are as large as a calf, with horns on the 
head like a deer, a, fearful look, red eyes, bearded like a tiger, the 
face somewhat like a man's, the body covered with scales, and the 



The Story of the State. 75 

tail so long that it twice makes the turn of the body, passing over 
the head and down between the legs, and ending at last in a fish's 
tail. Green, red and a kind of black are the colors employed. On 
the whole, these two monsters are so well painted, that we could 
not believe any Indian to have been the designer, as good painters 
in France would find it hard to do as well; besides this, they are so 
high upon the rock that it is hard to get conveniently at them to 
paint them." 

Numerous adventures befell the Frenchmen in their voyage 
down the river; some tribes proved friendly and others were in- 
clined to threaten them. When they reached the Arkansas river, 
they deemed it prudent not to venture among the cannibal Indians 
of the lower Mississippi. They had gone far enough to learn that 
the great river disembogued into the Gulf of Mexico, and not Gulf 
of California. Laboriously they pulled their craft against the cur- 
rent, homeward bound. They ascended the Illinois river and re- 
turned to Lake Michigan by way of the Des Plaines river. They 
had made the journey of nearly 2,800 miles, from the mission of St. 
Ignace to the mouth of the Arkansas and back, in a trifle over four 
months. 

Facsimile Autograph of Henry de Tontt. 

(Of all the voyageurs during the early French period of exploration, the most 

picturesque figure was that of the one-handed Tonty, the loyal companion of 

Robert Cavelier de La Salle. Mrs. Mary Hartwell Catherwood has woven a 

romance, "The Story of Tonty," from the main incidents of his adventurous life.) 

Marquette's health failed on the return journey, and he sought 
rest at his mission while Joliet pushed on to Quebec to report to 
his superiors. While approaching Montreal, his canoe was upset and 
he narrowly escaped death. A young Pawnee slave who had been 
presented to him by one of the chiefs with whom he had smoked the 
calumet, was in the canoe when the accident occurred, and was 
drowned. Joliet's journal and notes were swept away and never re- 
covered. He afterwards drew some maps from memory, but it re- 
mained for Marquette to bequeath to future generations the narra- 
tive of the expedition. 

A sad interest attaches to the fate of the gentle Marquette. After 
recuperating from the fatigues of his journey, he went among the 
Illinois Indians in the vicinity of Chicago. But his frame had be- 
come so enfeebled that he felt the end was near. He prepared to 
travel to his mission at St. Ignace, accompanied by two Frenchmen. 
Says the old account: "The eve of his death, which was a Friday, 
he told them, all radiant with joy, that it would take place on the 



76 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

morrow. During the whole day he conversed with them about the 
manner of his burial, the way in which he should be laid out, the 
place to be selected for his interment; he told them how to arrange 
his hands, feet and face, and directed them to raise a cross over his 
grave. He even went so far as to enjoin them, only three hours be- 
fore he expired, to take his chapel-bell, as soon as he was dead, and 
ring it while they carried him to the grave. Of all this he spoke so 
calmly and collectedly, that you would have thought that he spoke 
of the death and burial of another, and not of his own." 

On the east bank of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of a river, 
they laid down their paddles and carried Father Marquette ashore. 
Kindling a fire, they erected for him a rude cabin of bark, and here 
he sank gently into his last slumber. He was but 38 years of age 
when he died. 

The remains of the missionary were not permitted to remain in 
this wild spot. A band of Kiskakon Indians who had become con- 
verted by him when he was at the mission of the Holy Ghost at 
Chequamegon Bay, sought his grave, exhumed the remains and 
placed them in a box of birch bark, which they conveyed to the 
mission of St. Ignace. Nearly thirty canoes comprised the convoy, 
the solemn procession being met at the shore by the priests of the 
mission. With fitting obsequies, the remains of the missionary priest 
were deposited in a little vault in the middle of the church. A fire 
destroyed the church in 1705. 

Nearly two hundred years after the burial of Father Marquette, 
in 1877, when the chapel had long since been destroyed and even 
the knowledge of Its location remained but as a tradition, a half- 
breed engaged in clearing land at St. Ignace, came upon the rude 
foundatickn of a building. A priest, who surmised that the old 
church of Marquette had probably stood there, made an investiga- 
tion that established the fact. Excavations were begun, and the 
fragments of the birch bark casket wherein Father Marquette's re- 
mains had rested, were found. The fragments of bones were gath- 
ered reverently. Some of them were re-interred under a monument, 
others were distributed among admirers of Father Marquette resid- 
ing in various parts of the country. A neat casket was provided 
as a receptacle for most of the pieces of charred bone, and this cas- 
ket was sent, with its contents, to M&rquette college, Milwaukee. 
There they are now. 

Of the fate of Joliet, the official head of the enterprise that led 
to the discovery of the Mississippi river, little note has been taken 
by writers of history. He was rewarded by the French govern- 
ment as all the brave Frenchmen were who brought glory to the 
flag of the fleur de lis — by neglect. The historian John Gilmary 
Shea records that "the discoverer of the Mississippi was rewarded, 
as if in mockery, with an island in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence. 
This was Anticosti, and here Joliet built a fort and a dwelling for 



TJic Story of the State. 



77 



his family, and houses for trade. Two years after his island was 
taken by the English fleet and he himself, with his wife and mother- 
in-law, probably while attempting to reach Quebec, fell into the 
hands of Phipps, the English commander. His vessel and property 
were a total loss, but his liberty he recovered when the English re- 
tired from the walls of Quebec. Of his subsequent history there are 
but occasional traces, and we know only that he died some years 
prior to 1737." 




JOLIET'S MAP. 
(Considering the period when it was drawn, the Joliet map reproduced here- 
with is evidence of French sliill in cartography. Many later maps of English 
and Dutch design lack its clearness and comparative accuracy. Joliet's map 
and Marquette's are the earliest of the Mississippi based on actual knowledge. 
The tablet in the sketch served the explorer for a long inscription addressed to 
the Governor of New France.) 



Father Marquette's narrative does not constitute one of the 
famous Relations. His manuscript was sent to Paris, and nine years 
after the discovery of the great river, a Paris publisher brought it 
out, together with his map, in a small duodecimo volume compris- 
ing forty-three pages. The map is undoubtedly the first ever pub- 
lished of the Mississippi river. Five great rivers are delineated 
with surprising accuracy — the Arkansas, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois and 
Wisconsin. The latter is spelled Mescousing in the narrative — 
probably a typographical error for Mesconsin. 

The narrative of Marquette is written in a straightforward, sim- 
ple style, wholly free from exaggeration or any apparent purpose 
to give anything but facts. 



CHAPTER IX. 

LA SALLE AND HIS COMPANIONS. 

Following the discovery of the great river, there came to the 
Wisconsin region a notable group of voyageurs. In all the annals of 
the seventeenth century, no figure looms up as conspicuously as that 
of Robert Cavelier de La Salle. With his companiofas, the boastful 
friar Louis Hennepin, and the brave and faithful Chevalier Henry 
de Tonty, he daringly penetrated to unknown regions, and amid 
hardships almost incredible and in the face of difficulties seemingly 
impossible to counteract, secured for his country what seemed an 
empire of untold richness — the great Mississippi valley. The sol- 
dier of fortune, Greysolon de L'hut, also played a part in the re- 
markable career of La Salle. The story of these men is as marvel- 
ous as woven romance. 

Early in life La Salle had consecrated himself to the priesthood. 
His nature but ill fitted him for seclusion from the world, and he 
left the Jesuit order and went to Canada in quest of fame and for- 
tune. On the St. Lawrence he built a cabin, bartered for furs and 
studied the language of the Indians. His dream was to find a way 
to China, and in derision his frontier trading-post was named La 
Chine. The rapids, a stone's throw away, retain the name to this 
day. During one of his journeys he explored the Ohio as far as the 
falls, where the city of Louisville is now situated. He is believed to 
have penetrated to the Illinois country, and the claim has been made 
for him that he reached the Mississippi before Joliet and Marquette. 
This claim is based on mere surmise, and it is very improbable that 
La Salle was on the Mississippi before 1682, or nine years later, 
when he made his famous voyage down the river to the Gulf of 
Mexico. The incidents connected with that expedition are closely 
allied to the history of Wisconsin. 

Chevalier Henry de Tonty, the lieutenant of La Salle, was ?n 
Italian in the French service. His father was the inventor of the 
tontine system of life insurance. Having incurred the French king's 
displeasure, the elder Tonty, was locked up in the Bastile, and his 
son Henry entered the army. The latter was then 18 years old. He 
fought bravely in seven campaigns on board ships of war and in 
the galleys. His right hand having been shot away by a grenade, 
he had a hand made of iron to replace the lost member. Among the 
Indians this metal hand proved a great aid, for he used it vigor- 
ously when they became disorderly. As he wore the hand gloved, 
the red men could not understand how he could deal blows so effica- 
cious as to knock out their teeth or crack their skulls, and they re- 
garded him as a wonderful man. Tonty lived in the wilderness of 



The Story of the State. 79 

the West a quarter of a century, his expeditions being chiefly iu 
what are now the states of Illinois and Wisconsin. 

Another of the companions of La Salle was Hennepin, a mem- 
ber of the order of St. Francis. He had an adventurous spirit and 
much shrewdness, but he was given to greatly exaggerating his own 
achievements and belittling those of others. Clad in his coarse 
gown, with girdle at the waist, sandals on his feet and a portable al- 
tar strapped on his back, Hennepin was a unique figure in the 
wilderness. He was captured by the Sioux Indians, but was rescued 
by du L'hut. He wrote an interesting account of his experiences, 
but his inordinate vanity caused him to narrate achievements purely 
fictitious. His books had an extraordinary sale in Europe and were 
translated into almost every language spoken on that continent. 

Daniel Greysolon du L'hut was a cousin of Tonty of the iron 
hand. He had, like his cousin, been a brave soldier in Europe, and 
had served as a member of the royal guard. At the bloody battle of 
Seneriffe two horses were killed under him. For some unknown 
reason he renounced the splendid opportunities which he had for 
winning military glory and chose instead to become a wanderer 
among the barbarians of the New World. For thirty years this 
courageous man wandered over the Western country, in constant 
activity. He was the first white man who journeyed in a canoe 
from Lake Superior to the Mississippi river, his route being by way 
of the St. Croix river. When he died, the governor of New France 
wrote to his government: "He was a very honest man." 

In the following chapter, narrating the exploits of La Salle and 
his companions, the incidents given are chiefly those associated with 
their explorations in the Wisconsin region; the adventures that be- 
fell them elsewhere are of as absorbing interest, but are not prop- 
erly a part of this history. 



CHAPTER X. 

TRAVELERS IN THE WILDERNESS. 

Gazixg out upon the waters of Green Bay, the Pottawattomies, 
who, in 1879, had their wigwams pitched on the islands clustered at 
its mouth, saw a strange looking object approaching, one day in 
September of that year. It was a canoe of gigantic size, such as 
they had never seen before. Like the astonished Indians of Hud- 
son's bay, under similar circumstances, they marveled greatly to 
see this "house that walked on the water." 

The craft that was making for harbor, with bellowed sails and 
with the brazen throats of cannon glaring from her portholes, was 
the first sailing vessel that had furrowed the bosom of the great 
lakes. Though its size was not to exceed sixty tons burden, to the 
curious Indians gathered on the shore of Washington island it 
seemed like a huge monster of the deep come to the surface for a 
breathing spell. Aboard the Griffon — that was the name of the ves- 
sel — were Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, Friar Hennepin and 
two other Franciscans, and a motley crew of adventurers whom La 
Salle had hired to accompany him on a great expedition down the 
mysterious Mississippi. The vessel had been built amid incredible 
difficulties the preceding winter, under the direction of the lion- 
hearted Chevalier Henry de Tonty. La Salle headed the expedition, 
the king of France having generously given him permission to un- 
dertake it — at his own expense. In order to procure his outfit, La 
Salle had involved himself heavily in debt, hoping to pay his cred- 
itors by securing valuable furs in the Western country. He dreamed 
of a great empire to be won in the distant lands for his beloved 
France, and he sought to plant the fleur-de-lis in the remotest parts 
of the unexplored West. 

The shipyard of the Griffon was at the mouth of Cayuga creek, 
near Buffalo. Carved rudely in wood at the prow of the vessel was 
a representation of the fabulous monster — half eagle and half lion — 
whose name had been given this argonaut of fortune. The Griffon 
being conspicuous in the armorial bearings of Count Frontenac, the 
christening of the vessel was complimentary to this illustrious gov- 
ernor of New France. Like Frontenac, La Salle was bitterly hostile 
to the Jesuits, though his youth had been spent in preparation for 
donning their garb. 

"I will yet make the griflfin fly above the crows," he declared as 
he named his vessel. Count Frontenac was the griffin, and the crows 
were the black-gowned Jesuits whom he hated. 

The Griffon spread her sails in midsummer (1679) and moored 
at Washington island in September. On Lake Huron a terrific gale 

so 



The Story of the State. 



81 



was encountered that threatened to engulf vessel and crew. Deliv- 
ered from this danger, they anchored between two steep bluffs at 
Michilimackinac, famous in Indian tradition as the He Rabbit and 
the She Rabbit. They all felt so thankful not to be at the bottom 
of the lake that while the Griffon rode at anchor in the bay they 
went ashore for religious services. La Salle, arrayed in his scarlet 
cloak, with trimmings of gold lace, led the procession and ordered 
arms to be stacked along the chapel. The only sinner on the boat 
during the storm who was too hardened to feel repentance or fear. 




Hennepin's Drawing of a Wisconsin Buffalo. 

(The adventuies of Hennepin and his exaggerated narrative of them consti- 
tute one of the readable pages of Wisconsin and Minnesota history. Hennepin 
was a unique character. With a portable altar strapped on his back, he trudged 
through the woods in search of adventures. It was while a prisoner of the 
Sioux Indians that he witnessed several great buffalo hunts on the Wisconsin 
side of the Mississippi River. The buffalo ranges of Wisconsin were famous 
hunting grounds two hundred years ago. The last buffalo in this State is believed 
to have crossed the great river about fifty years ago, although long before that 
time this species of game was nearing extinction, as far as tlTe region this side 
of the Mississippi River was concerned.) 

was the pilot. While the others were kneeling in prayer, he spent 
his time in blasphemy and in swearing like a pirate. 

On Wisconsin soil La Salle found a cordial welcome. He bar- 
tered with such success that his little vessel was soon heavily 
freighted with beaver furs. Fortune seemed to smile upon him. 
These valuable peltries would appease his hungry creditors and 
would purchase more supplies for the long trip he had planned. He 
sent the richly-laden barque back to Montreal, directing the crew 
to rejoin him as soon as possible at the upper end of Lake Dauphin 
(Michigan). 



82 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

The Griffon was never seen again. Wliettier she foundered in a 
storm, or whether the cut-throat crew — ripe for mutiny before their 
departure — scuttled the vessel after rifling her cargo, and then es- 
caped to the Indians of the North, forever remained a mysterj\ 

"They set sail on the 18th of September with a very favorable 
light wind," afterward wrote the Franciscan friar, "making their 
adieu by firing a single cannon; and we were never afterward able 
to learn what course they had taken, and though there is no doubt 
but that she perished, we were never able to learn any other cir- 
cumstances of their shipwreck than the following: The barque hav- 
ing anchored north of Lake Dauphin (Michigan), the pilot against 
the advice of some Indians, who assured him that there was a 
great storm in the middle of the lake, resolved to continue his voy- 
age, without considering that the sheltered position where he lay 
prevented him knowing the force of the wind. He had scarcely sailed 
a quarter of a league from the coast, when these Indians saw the 
barque tossing in an extraordinary manner, unable to resist the 
tempest; so that in a short time they lost sight of her, and they be- 
lieve she was either driven on some sandbank, or that she found- 
ered. We did not learn all this till the next year. This barque cost 
more than 40,000 livres in goods, tools and peltries as well as men 
and rigging imported into Canada from France, and transported 
from Montreal to Ft. Frontenac in canoes." 

Unconscious of the fate that had befallen his vessel. La Salle 
and his men journeyed, in canoes down the west shore of Lake Michi- 
gan. The same storm that doubtless sent the Griffon to the bottom 
was experienced by them. The loquacious Hennepin jotted down 
the notes for the following description of the treacherous storms 
that on Lake Michigan seem born from sunshine, so quickly do 
they gather: 

"Amid the most beautiful calm in the world, a storm arose 
which endangered our lives, and which made us fear for the barque, 
and more for ourselves. We completed this great passage amid the 
darkness of night, calling to one another so as not to part com- 
pany. The water often entered our canoes, and the impetuous wind 
lasted four days with a fury like the greatest tempests of ocean. 
* * * We were forced to land on a bare rock, on which we en- 
dured the rain and snow for two days." 

Bad weather pursued the canoeists, and early in October they 
came to a place which from contemporary descriptions is assumed 
to have been the bay of Milwaukee. A village of the Pottawatta- 
mies was located here, and as the store of Indian corn and squashes 
was well-nigh exhausted, it was deemed prudent to replenish the 
supplies and to seek shelter from the storm. The waves rolled high 
and as the canoes were tossed about like shells, the Indians, gath- 
ered on the shore to haul them in. La Salle feared to land, believ- 



The Story of the State. 83 

ing his goods would be seized, and went some distance further 
despite their peril; then, jumping waist-high into the water, the men 
dragged the canoes ashore. To prevent a surprise, the party posted 
themselves on an eminence, presumably where Juneau park is, and 
several men cautiously wended their way to the Indian village to 
barter for provisions. They found it abandoned; the Indians, non- 
plussed by the behavior of the Frenchmen in not landing where thoy 
were, had taken the alarm. The men thereupon helped themselves 
to the corn in the cabins, and by way of compensation left a quan- 
tity of such articles as were customarily employed in Indian barter. 

Returning to the camp on the bluff the messengers found their 
companions there suspiciously watching the movements of a score 
of Indians, who were armed with bows, arrows and clubs. On pro- 
ducing a calumet, the Indians began to dance in sign of friendship. 
They manifested no anger because corn had been taken from their 
village, and sent to the village for more. La Salle was distrustful, 
•despite these friendly manifestations. Trees were felled to serve as 
.a shelter in case of attack, and the men passed the night under arms. 

The next day the old men of the village came and feasted the 
French; La Salle made a number of presents and the journey was 
resumed. Passing the mouth of the Chicago river the head of the 
lake was rounded, and where the St. Joseph river empties a rude 
stockade was built. Instructing the men he left here to forward to 
iim the supplies from the Griffon, La Salle, Tonty and Hennepin 
pursued their journey towards the Mississippi river, going by way 
of the Kankakee and Illinois rivers. 

On the shore of Lake Peoria, among the Illinois Indians, a fort 
was built. La Salle called it Fort Crevecoeur — the Fort of the 
Broken Heart. There was ample ground for discouragement. No 
word came to the anxious voyageurs concerning the Griffon. Let- 
ters had been suspended conspicuously from the branches of trees 
along the route to guide expected messengers upon the return of the 
"vessel. 

But no messengers came. 

Instead, the demeanor of the Indians gave ground for the belief 
that the emissaries of La Salle's enemies had followed him to these 
remote regions. 

So it proved. 

Under cover of night a Wisconsin Indian entered the village and 
in a secret council of the chiefs poisoned their good will by declar- 
ing that the strangers enjoying their hospitality were agents come 
to betray them to their dreaded foes — the Iroquois. He then re- 
turned to his Wisconsin wilderness as silently as he had come. 

When La Salle and Tonty sought to enlist the Illinois chiefs in 
their Mississippi exploration, the Indians responded by describing 
with the picturesque exaggeration appertaining to their phraseology, 



84 LcndhKj Events of Wisconsin History. 

the terrible dangers that would have to be encountered. Alarmed 
by their tales the insubordination of the miserable crew accom- 
panying La Salle and Tonty came to the surface. An attempt was 
made to poison La Salle. Some of the men deserted and their de- 
parture redoubled the suspicions of the Illinois that treachery was 
meditated. 

Finally La Salle's impatience concerning the Griffon and its ex- 
pected supplies became so great that he determined on a journey 
afoot to Montreal to learn what had become of his vessel. He left 
Chevalier Tonty in command, and sent Hennepin and two com- 
panions down the river with instructions to go to the Mississippi 
and explore its northern waters. Most of the Frenchmen deserted 
Tonty not long after, and he spent the fall in making friends with 
the Illinois Indians. In the fall a war party of the dreaded Iroquois 
Indians appeared. Tonty tried to protect the Illinois and almost 
lost his life in consequence. Thereupon he and his five remaining 
companions sought safety by departing in a leaky canoe. GTreeu 
Bay was the objective point. 

While pursuing their toilsome way one of the two Recollect 
priests of the party lost his life. They had landed to repair the 
leaky canoe, and Father Gabriel retired to a leafy arbor for medita- 
tion and prayer. He never returned, and his companions in vain 
sought for him. Years afterwards the breviary of Father Gabriel 
was found among the Kickapoo Indians of Wisconsin, and the mys- 
tery of his fate became known. While absorbed in prayer, he had 
been discovered by a wandering band of these Indians, and they 
cruelly crushed in hie skull with a club, scalped him and threw his 
body into a deep hole. 

It was unfortunate for Tonty that he sought succor at Green 
Bay, instead of going by the longer route along the opposite shore 
of Lake Michigan, to Michilimackinac. He thus missed La Salle, 
who was hurrying along that route with reinforcements. 

In Wisconsin Tonty and his men fared but ill. For days they 
skirted along the lake shore, living on nuts, roots and wild garlic 
which they dug from under the frozen snow. It grew bitterly cold, 
their footgear gave cut and they improvised moccasins by cutting 
the beaver mantle of poor Father Gabriel into strips, which they 
tied on with thongs made of the same material. For fifteen days 
they subsisted on the scanty fare they dug out of the frozen ground, 
when the providential killing of a stag gave them renewed courage 
and sustenance. 

The Sieur de Boisrondet became lost in the forest and for ten 
days was looked upon as forever lr>st by his dispirited companions. 
When he rejoined them he told how he had lived alone in the woods, 
armed with a musket, but unprovided with flint and bullets. In his 
extremity he had melted a pewter dish into pellets and with the 
touch of a live coal successfully discharged his musket at a flock of 



The Story of the State. 85 

wild turkeys. Thus he had kept alive his emaciated frame till he 
found his companions. 

When at last the eyes of the weary travelers were gladdened by 
the sight of an Indian village, new disappointments awaited them; 
the village was deserted. The famished men eagerly gathered a few 
handfuls of scattered corn and a few frozen gourds. While search- 
ing for more, a belated member of the party came up and began de- 
vouring the provisions, which he supposed had been left there tot 
him. When the gleaners returned, they found he had not spared 
the corn and the gourds. 

"We had much pleasure in seeing him again, but little to see 
our provisions partly consumed," Tonty remarks in his memoir of 
the journey. 

Following another Indian trail, the weary travelers reached a 
second village. The Indians had departed, leaving the slumbering 
embers of a fire. This was about the place where the Sturgeon Bay 
canal opens into Lake Michigan. In the hope of coming upon the 
Indians, the weary men made a portage to Sturgeon creek. Failing 
to come upon the savages, they determined to go back to the Indian 
village to secure at least the comfort of dying by a fire. 

They were now in their last extremity. Tonty was attacked by 
a fever and his legs were swollen terribly. In his hunger one of 
the men had made a meal of part of Father Gabriel's mantle of hide, 
and suffered so excruciatingly from indigestion as to be unable to 
proceed. The creek had frozen so as to render navigation by canoe 
impossible. The last hope seemed to be gone, when two Indians 
chanced that way and brought the long sought relief to the famish- 
ing men. Among the well-disposed Pottawattamies, in what is now 
the peninsula of Door County, Wis., Tonty spent the winter and 
recuperated from the hardships of his terrible journey. In the 
spring he crossed toMichilimackinac. To their mutual joy, Tonty 
and La Salle there met and told each other what adventures had 
befallen each, since their parting at Fort Crevecoeur, twelve months 
before. 

Subsequent events in the lives of La Salle and Tonty were less 
intimately associated with the Wisconsin region. In 1682, they un- 
dertook their second expedition down the Mississippi, reaching Its 
mouth after many exciting adventures, and taking possession in the 
name of Louis XIV. of all the country drained by its streams — an 
empire reaching from the Alleghenies to the Rocky mountains. A 
couple of years later the enterprising La Salle endeavored to reach 
the mouth of the Mississippi by vessel from France and was cast 
away on the inhospitable shore of Texas. Some of his men shot 
him from ambush, and his unburied bones were left to bleach un- 
der a Southern sun. His faithful friend Tonty had before this been 
made commander of the fort on the minors river known later as 
"Starved Rock." There he ruled his savage vassals for many years. 



CHAPTER XL 
FRIAR Hennepin's adventures. 

It took Friar Hennepin and his two Frenclimen many days to 
reach Wisconsin soil after leaving the Fort of the Broken Heart, 
for when they drifted to the junction of the Illinois with the Mis- 
sissippi, great masses of ice were floating down the latter. They 
passed the Wisconsin and Black rivers, and when they reached the 
great expansion of the Mississippi river called Lake Pepin, Indians 
made them prisoners. Hennepin called it the Lake of Tears, be- 
cause the Indians who had taken him wept the whole night to in- 
duce the other warriors to consent to the death of the captives. 
Their lives were spared, and they were taken to Minnesota villages 
of the Sioux, where the three Frenchmen had many curious experi- 
ences. On the way there, they witnessed a great buffalo hunt on 
the Wisconsin side of the river. In Hennepin's narrative he describes 
how "these Indians at times sent their best runners by land to chase 
the herds of wild cattle on the water side; as these animals crossed 
the river, they sometimes killed forty or fifty, merely to take the 
tongue and most delicate morsels, leaving the rest, with which they 
would not burden themselves, so as to travel more rapidly. We 
sometimes indeed ate good pieces, but without bread, wine or salt, 
and without spice or other seasoning." 

Sometimes the party feasted right royally, and again went 
twenty-four hours at a stretch without eating. Hennepin had a 
robust appetite and this fasting did not suit him. 

"If a religious in Europe underwent as many hardships and 
labors, and practiced abstinences like those wt were often obliged 
to suffer in America, no other proof would be needed for his canon- 
ization," ruefully observed the Franciscan. 

An Indian chief named Aquipaguetin adopted Hennepin as his 
son, and from that time on the friar's life was made most miserable. 
While on a great buffalo hunt in Wisconsin, with their Indian cap- 
tors, Hennepin and one of the Frenchmen tried to escape to the 
Wisconsin river. They hoped to find some of La Salle's men. They 
suffered much for want of provisions. They captured a turtle, and 
while Hennepin endeavored to cut off its head, the turtle almost 
snapped off one of his fingers. They chanced upon a herd of sixty 
buffaloes crossing the river, chased the animals to an island, and 
there killed one. Hennepin cooked little pieces of the fat meat in 
an earthen pot, and as they had fasted for twenty-four hours, both 
ate so voraciously as to become ill. Their distress lasted two days 
and then they found the rest of the buffalo meat so tainted that they 
could not eat it. Pursuing their way and wondering where their 

so 



The Story of the State. 87 

next meal would come from, an eagle providentially dropped a large 
carp which it was carrying in its claws to feed the eaglets in its 
eyrie nest. Again they discerned an otter feeding on a huge spade 
fish, and robbed it of its prey. When his companion saw the large 
fish "with a kind of paddle or beak five fingers broad and a foot and 
a half long running from the head," his superstitious fears were 
aroused. He thought it was "a devil in the paws of that otter." 

"But his fright did not prevent our eating this monstrous fish, 
which we found very good," adds the reverend chronicler, whose ap- 
petite never failed him. 

To the consternation of Hennepin, as they neared the Wisconsin 
river, there suddenly appeared on the scene his savage foster father 
and ten warriors. Hennepin's companion was away on a hunt for 
food, and the friar was reposing on the bank of the river under a 
canopy improvised with an old blanket. When he saw Aquipaguetin, 
he thought his last hour had come. As Hennepin afterwards told 
the story, the Indian "seeing me alone came up, tomahawk in hand. 
I laid hold of two pocket pistols which the Picard had got back 
from the Indians, and a knife, not intending to kill this would-be- 
Indian father of mine, but only to frighten him." 

Hennepin doubtless exaggerated this incident, for there was no 
bloodshed. Once more a prisoner, he accompanied the Indians on 
a great buffalo hunt in Wisconsin, where they killed, at different 
times, "as many as a hundred and twenty buffaloes." 

En route to the Indian villages with the booty of the chase, the 
Sieur du L'hut made his appearance with a party of Frenchmen and 
demanded the release of the Franciscan and his companions. This 
brave soldier of fortune had great influence over the Indians, and 
Hennepin was released from the bondage of his tyrannical foster 
father. 

For a year and a half, the friar had been virtually a slave. He 
now accompanied du L'hut on a westward expedition, and when that 
explorer decided to return to Green Bay, went with him. An old 
chief traced for them a route identical with that pursued by Joliet 
when he went to the Mississippi. Hennepin's account gives these 
incidents of the trip in Wisconsin: 

"We stopped near Ousconsin river to smoke some meat; three 
Indians coming from the nations we had left, told us that their great 
chief named the Pierced Pine, having heard that one of the chiefs 
of his nation wished to pursue and kill us, had entered his cabin 
and tomahawked him, to prevent his pernicious design. We regaled 
these three Indians with meat." 

Journeying on for two days tue Frenchmen "perceived an army 
of one hundred and forty canoes, filled with about two hundred and 
fifty warriors; we thought that those who brought the preceding 
news were spies, for instead of descending the river upon leaving us. 



Lcailing Ercnts of Wisconsin History. 



they ascended to tell their people. The chiefs of this little army 
visited us, and treated us very kindly." 

At the portage they stopped to mark crosses on the trunks of the 
trees, and reached Green Bay without further mishap. Hennepin 
returned to Europe, where he published his book of adventures — 
some of them true, and some the creation of his imagination. Du 
L'hut remained in the West and ended his days in the wilderness, 
after experienaing many thrilling adventures. 

Other travelers came to Wisconsin in search of adventure and 
fortune. One Baron La Hontan went as far as the Mississippi in 
1689, and wrote a book containing more fiction than Hennepin's. An- 
other traveler was a Frenchman named Pierre Le Sueur, who went 
down the Fox-Wisconsin route and reached the Sioux country, in 
1683. Ten years later he built a fort at Chequamegon Bay, and an- 
other on an island in the Mississippi, near the mouth of the St. Croix 
river. He also worked the lead diggings in the southwestern corner 
of the state. 

Toward the end of the seventeenth century, the Fox- Wisconsin 
route became closed to travelers on account of the hostility of the 
Fox Indians. Father St. Cosme, who had planned to go to the 
Mississippi from Green Bay by that route, was compelled to go along 
the western shore of Lake Michigan. The closing of this important 
waterway was one of the chief causes of the great Fox Indian war. 



PART III. 



UNDER FRENCH AND ENGLISH DOMINION. 



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H B >5 

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CHAPTER I. 

FIRE BRANDS OF THE WEST. 

No EVENT in the annals of Western Indian warfare bears a paral- 
lel to the savage ferocity of the long war of extermination carrried 
on by the Frenchmen against the Outagamies of Wisconsin — the 
Musquakies as they called themselves; les Renards, as the French 
called them; the Poxes, as they were termed by the English. Neither 
the Pequot war of New England nor the tireless pursuit of the South- 
ern Seminoles witnessed such scenes of barbaric cruelty as occurred 
during the great conflict with the Foxes. For a period of thirty 
years, Frenchmen hunted the harried fugitives fi'om one place to 
another. Firebrand and famine alike proved unavailing to sweep 
off the face of the earth these war-like Indians, "passionate and un- 
tamable, springing into new life from every defeat, and, though re- 
duced in the number of their warriors, yet present everywhere by 
their ferocious enterprise and savage character." Indian and white 
man vied with each other in acts of demon-like cruelty; even women 
and children suffered the horrors of death at the stake. 

It it not easy to determine the origin of the hatred manifested 
by the Foxes towards the French; doubtless a series of events con- 
tributed to this feeling, rather than any one act, for the Fox tribe 
was the only one of the great Algonkin family which did not fra- 
ternize with the French. Nicholas Perrot was the only Frenchman 
for whom they manifested friendship, and in his case a display of 
heroism in rescuing a daughter of a Fox chief from their enemies 
was responsible for this feeling of friendship. 

It seems to have been a grievance of the Foxes that their ene- 
mies among neighboring tribes were supplied with firearms by the 
French traders. They also claimed to have been ill-treated on the 
occasion of a visit to Montreal. The ill-feeling thus engendered grew 
more bitter as one act of reprisal brought on another. At last the 
Foxes grew so insolent that they took possession of the river high- 
way that bears their name, and levied tribute on all who passed 
that way. Their demands grew so extortionate as to threaten the 
ruin of the great fur trade. 

In his "Seventy-two Years' Recollections of Wisconsin," Augus- 
tin Grignon narrates that the Foxes were located on the western 
bank of the Fox river, some thirty-seven miles above Green Bay. 
"Here they made it a point, whenever a trader's boat approached, to 
place a torch upon the bank, as a signal for the traders to come 

91 



92 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



ashore and pay the customary tribute, which they exacted from all. 
To refuse this tribute was sure to incur the displeasure of the Foxes, 
and robbery would be the mildest punishment inflicted. This 
haughty, imperious conduct of the Foxes was a source of no little 




LANGLADE'S COMMISSION FROM KING LOUIS XV. 

(The Original is in Possession of Mrs. Morgan L. Maxtin of Green Bay.) 
Following is the wording of Langlade's Commission: 

DE PAR LE ROY. 

Sa Majeste ayant fait choix du Sr. Langlade pour servir en quaJite de Lieu- 
tenant reforme a la suite des troupes entretenues en Canada, Elle mande an 
Gouverneur, Son Lieutenant-general de la Nouvello France, de le recevoir et de 
le faire reconnaitre en la dite qualite de Lieutenant reforme de tout ceux et 
ainsy qu'il appartiendra. Fait a Versailles, le pr. fevrier 1760. Louis. 

annoyance to the traders, who made their complaints to the com- 
mandants of the Western posts, and in due time these grievances 
reached the ears of the governor of Canada." 

So bold had these firebrands become in 1712 that they planned 
to destroy Detroit, then a garrison of thirty men. Friendly Indians 



The Story of the State. 93 

came to the rescue of the French and the invaders were surrounded. 
They had dug holes in the ground and here they 'hid themselves, till 
one dark and rainy night they managed to elude their foes. Near 
Lake St. Claire the Foxes were overtaken and a desperate fight en- 
sued. One thousand men, women and children — so the old accounts 
say — lost their lives in this engagement. The remnant of the band 
hurried back to their Wisconsin villages. Here they diligently 
sought to unite the tribes in a confederacy for a general attack on 
the French. So threatening seemed the danger that the authorities 
at Montreal dispatched a considerable force to Wisconsin, under com- 
mand of the king's lieutenant at Quebec, Sieur de Louvigny. 

For the first time in the history of Wisconsin, an armed military 
force with hostile intent appeared within its borders. The commanQ 
comprised 800 men, some of them Indians who joined the standard 
of the French en route from Quebec. Thirteen canoes of Iroquois 
opposed their passage, but were defeated. One of the prisoners was 
roasted and eaten by the Ottawas. 

Sieur de L/ouvigny started on his war of extermination with 
great energy. The command left Quebec in March, 1716, and the 
king's lieutenant urged the canoes forward so as to inspire his In- 
dian allies with his earnestness. At Michilimackinac the report was 
given out that not a single member of the Fox tribe would be spared. 
Evidently the Foxes also deemed the situation serious, for they pre- 
pared to sell their lives as dearly as possible. On Fox river, at the 
place known as Butte des Morts (Hill of the Dead) they erected a 
stockade. In the rear they dug a ditch, and a triple range of oak 
palisades served as a protection to those within. Five hundred war- 
riors and three thousand women, if the old accounts are trustworthy, 
here barricaded themselves and awaited the coming of the French. 

The siege began before three hundred warriors who were com- 
ing to reinforce the Foxes had arrived. The Indians had constructed 
their fort with such military genius that it seemed a foolhardy un- 
dertaking to attempt to storm it. De Louvigny ordered his two 
field pieces and one grenade mortar to play on the fort, but the 
triple row of oaken palisades could not be battered down. He de- 
termined to force the fort by means of mines. 

"After three days of open trenches, sustained by continuous fire 
of fusileers with two pieces of cannon and a grenade mortar, they 
were reduced to ask for peace," Louvigny wrote in his official ac- 
count. "The promptitude with which the officers who were in this 
action pushed forward the trenches that I had opened at only seventy 
yards from their fort, made the enemy fear the third night that they 
would be taken." 

As Louvigny was about to explode two mines, the humbled 
Foxes sent a proposition for peace. It was rejected. A second time 
the Foxes sued for peace, offering following terms of capitulation: 



94 Leadinp Eccnts of Wisconsin History. 

1. The Foxes and allies agreed to make peace with the French 
and their Indian confederates. 

2. The Foxes agreed to release all their prisoners. 

3. Every Frenchman whom the Foxes had killed was to be re- 
placed by a slave, such slaves to be prisoners taken from distant na- 
tions with whom they were at war. 

4. The Foxes agreed to pay all the expenses of the war by the 
product of the ohase. 

These conditions were accepted by Louvigny, though the boast 
had been made that nothing less than the utter extermination of the 
Fox nation would satisfy the Fi-ench. The brave Chief Pemoussa, 
who had led the attack on Detroit, and five other chiefs, accompanied 
the victor to Montreal, as hostages, and to ratify the treaty. 

Small-pox was decimating the colony that year, and to this 
scourge three of the hostages succumbed. The famous war chief 
Pemoussa was one of the victims. Louvigny, fearful that the Foxes 
would believe that the hostages had been betrayed to their death, 
hastened with one of the survivors to the Fox river. A rich store 
of presents assuaged the grief of the Foxes for their dead chieftains, 
and after the usual ceremonials of the tribe in grieving for the dead, 
lasting several days, the calumet was smoked and songs of peace 
were sung. 

It was but a hollow peace. The Foxes continued their depreda- 
tions, and failed to carry out the treaty they had made. In 1728 the 
Sieur de Lignery was sent to Wisconsin to humble the haughty 
Foxes. Fifteen hundred men made the journey in canoes. The 
plan was to surprise the Foxes in their villages, and to give no quar- 
ter. As one of the governors of New Fi'ance had written .sometime 
before this: "His majesty is persuaded of the necessity of destroy- 
ing that nation, as it cannot be kept quiet." 

The commandant of the 450 French and 1,000 Indian allies acted 
with great deliberation. Delays that were unaccountable occurred 
along the way, and it was suspected that the officer's lack of haste 
was due to potations in the privacy of his tent. At any rate, such 
slow progress was made, that long before the army arrived at Green 
Bay the Foxes had been apprised of their coming, and had fled. 
They had been lodged at the village of the Sac Indians, near Fort St. 
Francis (Green Bay), and de Lignery surrounded the wigwams, not 
knowing that the Foxes had decamped in anticipation of his coming. 
But four Indians were found there, and these unfortunates were 
turned over to the allies of the French. After diverting themselves 
by practicing cruelties of all sorts, the Indians put an end to the 
misery of the prisoners by shooting them to death with their arrows. 

After this achievement de Lignery proceeded up Fox river in 
pursuit of the enemy, going in the same leisurely way as before. 
Empty villages were found, but no trace of the Foxes. Fields of 



The Story of the State. 95 

Indian corn were ruthlessly ravaged and the torch was applied to the 
deserted villages. Vast quantities of maize, peas, beans and gourds 
were thus destroyed. The Winnebago villages were likewise swept 
with fire. • 

"It is certain that half of these nations, who number 4,000 souls, 
will die with hunger," is the cheerful prediction made in the official 
account of the expedition that was sent to the king. 

In four of the Fox villages two old women, a girl and an old man 
were found. These were roasted at a slow fire, and then killed. 

The season was now far advanced, the French had to rely on 
Indian corn for daily fare, and as the safety of half the army was 
endangered, de Lignery ordered a return march. Thus inglori- 
ously ended this expedition. The second in command on this occa- 
sion was the same Beaujeu who later led the terrific onslaug'ht on 
the army of Gen. Braddock. 

The Marquis de Beauharnois wrote in the month of May, 1730, 
that he had received "the favorable news" that while returning from 
a buffalo hunt a party of Foxes had been surprised and annihilated. 
Eighty Indians were killed in ambush or sang the death song at the 
stake. 

"Our allies burned the boats, and three hundred women and 
children shared the same fate," gleefully wrote Beauharnois. "I have 
the honor, my lord, to communicate this news with so much the 
more pleasure, as there is no doubt existing on the subject." 

Shortly after this, the official letters sent to the French minister 
at Paris convey the interesting information that "two hundred of 
their warriors have been killed on the spot, or burned after having 
been taken as slaves, and six hundred women and children were 
absolutely destroyed." The Sieur de Villiers commanded this expedi- 
tion. Another expedition was undertaken by the Sieur de Buisson. 
With desperate bravery, the hunted tribesmen defended their ancient 
hunting grounds. Forced to fly from the Fox river valley owing to 
the unrelenting onslaughts of the French, they pitched their tepees 
on the Wisconsin. Here, too, they made a gallant stand, but their 
decimated ranks could no longer withstand the fury of the French 
and their Indian allies. They sought refuge among the lowas. Their 
descendants, nearly a century later, with the Sac Indians, under the 
celebrated chief Black Ha/wk, cai'ried terror to the pioneer American 
settlements of Wisconsin. 

The Sac Indians were closely allied with the Foxes. This friend- 
ship led to serious consequences. It was suspected by the French 
commander at Green Bay that the Sacs were harboring Fox refugees 
in their village near the fort. Capt. de Villiers rashly concluded to 
go to the village and demand their surrender. He found the Indians 
in council. Annoyed at their disinclination to comply with his 
demands, the captain drew a pistol and shot one of the chiefs dead. 



96 



Leading Ecciits of Wiscoimn Hifitory. 



His life seemed to hang by a thread, for the young men rushed at 
him to avenge the chief's death. The old men interposed. Unmind- 
ful of his danger, Capt. Villiers again leveled his weapon and killed 
a chief. A third bullet sped on its way and found a victim. 

At this juncture a young Sac known as Blackbird seized a gun 
and shot the captain to the heart. This- young Indian, who after- 




"Where the Battle Was Fought." 

(The foot of Lake Winnebago (where the city of Neenah has been built) was 
the scene of one of the fiercest battles of the war against the Foxes. During the 
early part of the present century, the Winnebago Indians were located here, 
and one of their chiefs, who was known as Four Legs, undertook, as had the 
Foxes a century before, to stop all comers and to require the payment of 
tribute. On one occasion Gen. Leavenworth came with troops in batteaux en 
route to the Mississippi. Four Legs ordered him to stop and deliver. 

"The door is locked," said the old chief. 

"But I have the key," said the General, as he raised his rifle and aimed it 
at the head of the chief. 

"Then you can pass through," quickly replied the old Indian, who seems to 
have had as much prudence as valor in his composition.) 



wards became a celebrated chief of his tribe, was then but 12 years 
of age. 

The French now rallied to avenge the death of their commander. 
A battle was fought, and the Sacs were totally routed. Like the 
Foxes they became exiles from their fertile fields in the valley of 
the Fox. They took up their habitations along the Wisconsin river. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE HILL OF THE DEAD. 

Tradition has it that at the Butte des Morts (Hill of the Dead) 
there were fought the bloodiest battles of the long war of extermina- 
tion carried on by the French in seeking the expulsion of the Fox 
Indians from their fertile valley. A gallant captain whose name is 
recorded in history as "the famous French partisan, Marin," was 
chiefly associated with the expedition that led to the sanguinary title 
given to the two hills near Oshkosh known as the Great Butte des 
Moi'ts and Little Butte des Morts. Capt. Marin was undoubtedly at 
one time in command of the little garrison at La Bale (Green Bay), 
but the dates of his conflicts with the Indians have not been clearly 
ascertained. The tradition of the Hill of the Dead is an interest- 
ing one. 

Like many other traders who used the Fox-Wisconsin highway, 
Capt. Marin had suffered from the exactions of the robbers along the 
banks of the Fox. He determined to inflict a terrible lesson, that the 
Foxes would long remember. 

Before railway graders attacked the eminence with pick and 
spade, the summit of la Butte des Morts was an outlook whence 
could be seen the "lake of Graise d'Ours to the east and a long reach 
of the Fox river and many a rood of fat prairie land to the west- 
ward." Situated in an angle where the Fox and the Wolf rivers 
mingle their waters, it was exceptionally well located as a vantage 
ground whence the pirates of the prairies could discern the coming 
of their victims. When the boats of the French grew few, the Foxes 
could vary monotony by shooting the blue-winged teal which fat- 
tened on the wild rice that grew there so plentifully. Myriads of 
water fowl would rise on wing as the voyageurs worked their canoes 
through the tangled growth that barred their way. Soon the men 
in the boats would discern the flicker of the red men's torch as a 
signal to come ashore and pay such tariff as the Indians chose to 
levy. A Sac Indian who attempted to enforce the penalty received 
a wound that felled him to the ground. The young trader's life paid 
the penalty of his rash resistance. His scalp was taken in triumph, 
and his goods were pillaged. Thus did the haughty Indians give 
warning that they would brook no protest against their trade regu- 
lations. 

The tradition current half a century ago was that the Hill of the 
Dead was the repository of the bones of warriors who fell in the ter- 
rible battle with the French at some period not definitely known, 
except that it was during the great thirty years' war carried on 
against the Foxes. Capt. Perriere Marin was a dashing soldier who 

97 



98 



Lcmllng Events of Wiscom'ui Histori/. 



had taken part in the bloody battles of Malplaquet and Friedlingen 
before coming to America. He was of too stern stuff to yield to In- 
dian arrogance without a struggle. 

"Give me 300 regulars," quoth he to the commanding officer at 
Quebec, "and these Indians on the Fox will repent their presumption 
in barring the path to a soldier of France." 

His request having been granted, he repaired to the great ren- 
dezvous at Michilimackinac to make preparations. A dozen boats of 
the usual pattern — strongly built, flat-bottomed, pointed at both ends 
and covered with sheets of painted canvas — were constructed. Into 




Hill of the Dead, as It Appears To-day. 

(Above view represents the mound or what remains of the tumulus, as it 
appears from the river. The hill was not of great altitude at any time, but the 
surrounding country, being exceptionally flat, gave the elevation an added 
importance. The pick and spade of civilization have in the last half century 
materially reduced its dimensions.) 



these he stowed a number of kegs of French brandy, and proceeded 
to make a tour of the islands that are strung like beads on a thread 
along the eastern shore of Green Bay. Here he smoked the calumet 
and unfolded to the Indians his purpose of meting out punishment 
to the insolent Foxes. The chiefs deliberated and looked longingly 
at the brandy, which Capt. Marin temptingly exposed. 

"What the Father observes is good," responded one of the chiefs. 
"He is wise. But our understanding is weak; a little milk will 
strengthen it." 

Capt. Marin took the hint and tapped a keg of brandy. For sev- 
eral days there was revel in the camp of the Indians. The chief took 



The Storu of the State. 99 

advantage of the delay to send the Foxes warning of the contem- 
plated attack. Unfortunately for the latter, they failed to heed the 
warning. 

"The Outagamies are not cowards," was the lofty answer they 
sent back. 

Finally Oapt. Marin had everything in readiness, and by prom- 
ing his Indian allies the land of the Foxes, induced them to join his 
force. He sent one of his boats in advance to the Butte des Morts, 
with instructions to permit the boat to be plundered without offer- 
ing resistance. In the boat he had stowed some of his brandy kegs. 
He had a shrewd design in this. Of course, as soon as the Foxes 
spied the boat, they went through the usual tactics, and when they 
discovered the nature of the cargo, increased the ordinary toll to 100 
per cent. 

The confiscation of the brandy was what the crafty French cap- 
tain had planned. He landed his force a mile below the Hill of the 
Dead, out of sight, and instructed them to creep behind the Indian 
villages and secrete themselves until they heard firing in front. Into 
his boats he crowded his armed soldiers and covered them with the 
parlas, as the painted sheetings were called, so as to make it appear 
that he had a cargo of freight. A few of the soldiers disguised as 
boatmen took up the paddles and sang one of the popular ditties of 
the rivermen, as they made the boats cut through the water. 

The drunken Indians on the hill spied them with great delight. 
It seemed the richest spoil that had ever ventured within their 
domain. As the boats came along, bullets whizzed athwart to signal 
an immediate stop. In pretended fi-ight the steersmen cried to the 
rowers to heed the summons. As the keels grated, the Indians leaped 
into the water in their eagerness to secure their prey. This was the 
opportunity for which Oapt. Marin had maneuvered. 

"Help! help! thieves! thieves!" he yelled in a loud voice. 

In a moment the boats were alive with soldiers; the canvas cov- 
erings were thrown oft like magic. Six score Frenchmen raised their 
muskets with the precision of trained soldiers, and poured a deadly 
volley into the thick crowd of Indians who were dragging at the 
boats. 

Dazed by the sudden attack, seeing their men falling on all sides, 
as the bullets tore into their midst, the v/arriors fied to their village 
on the hill. Here, to their consternation, they faced an enemy as 
remorseless. Their wigwams of bark were in flames, and behind the 
curtain of flames and smoke were the men whom Oapt. Marin had 
sent to cut off their retreat. 

Surrounded as they were, the Foxes fought with the fury born 
of desperation. Men, women and children perished in the flames or 
fell by the bullets of the Fremch and the tomahawks of the French- 
men's allies. Not one asked or was given quarter. Their charred 
bones gave to the hill the name it bears to this day. 



100 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

Such is the tradition of the Hill of the Dead. Doubtless it is true 
that at one time an engagement took place here, but there are no 
records preserved to tell whether there was indeed such a wholesale 
slaughter as that Avhioh is told in the traditional narrative. 

It is told of Oapt. Marin that at another time he carried ruin to 
an Indian village in the dead of winter. His men made the arduous 
and perilous journey on snowshoes, caught the unsuspecting Indians 
unawares, and by torch and tomahawk annihilated the whole band. 

It is known that Capt. Marin commanded at La Bale in 1754, 
but the battle at the Hill must have occurred many years before 
this date. 

Subsequently Capt. Marin took part in the Indian war in New 
York and the East. When Fort William Henry was captured, he 
aided in the slaughter with a band of Wisconsin Indians. The great 
French general Montcalm wrote that in a daring expedition against 
Fort Edward this adventurous captain "exhibited a rare audacity"; 
with a small detachment "he carried off a patrol of ten men and 
swept away an ordinary guard of fifty like a wafer." When New 
France fell, Capt. Marin returned to the Wisconsin woods. He lived 
to a ripe old age, and in the soil of Wisconsin his grave was dug. 



CHAPTER III. 

NAMING THE INLAND WATERS. 

Mississippi River — Synonyms: Rio Grande del Espiritu Santo (Hernando Da 
Soto); Great river (Friar Hennepin); River of the Immaculate Conception 
(Pere Marquette); River Colbert (Sieur de La Salle); River Buade (Louis 
Joliet); River Gastacha (Iroquois Indians); Messipi (Ottawa Indians). 

Wisconsin River — Synonyms: Meskousing, Miskonsing, Onisconsin, Miscon- 
sin, Ouisconsing, Ouisconsin, Wisconche. 

Lake Michigan — Synonyms: Lake Illinois, lUinovik; Lake Dauphin; Lake 
Michigonong, Michigami, Mitchigami, Mitchiganons; Lake St. Joseph; Magnus 
Lacus Algonquinorum. 

Lake Superior— Synonyms: Lake Superieur; Lake Tracy; Geetchee-Gumee ; 
Kitchi-Gami; Grand Lac; Lac de Conde; Upper Lake. 

Green Bay — Synonyms: Lac de Gens de Mer; Enitajghe (Iroquois); La 
Grand Bale; Bay des Puants; La Baye des Eaux Puantes; La Baye; La Baie 
Verte; Lake of the People of the Sea. 

Lake Winnebago — Synonyms: Winnebagog; Lac Outouagamis; Lake Wyne- 
baygas; Lac Ouinnebagon; Lake Puan. 

Many of the names g-iven by the early explorers to the water- 
ways of this region have survived to this day, though not all of them 
in their original form. Again others, and among them the great 
lakes and the great river Mississippi, have gone through many and 
curious transformations of nomenclature before they obtained the 
names they bear at this day. 

The first time the name Mississippi appeared in print was in a 
Jesuit Relation. Claude Allouez had heard from Indians sojourning 
at his Chequamegon chapel of bark of a great stream which they 
termed Me-sipi. The Iroquois Indians, whose habitations were in 
what is now New York, called this river Gastacha. In Friar Hen- 
nepin's narrative, the river is called Mechasipi. Joliet, when his 
canoe came from the Wisconsin river to the junction with the great 
river at the place where later rose the city of Prairie du Chien, chris- 
tened the stream Buade river, in honor of the family name of Count 
Frontenac. His companion, Marquette, less worldly-minded, called 
the river Conception, because it was on the day known by that 
name in the calendar of his faith that he had received pei-mission to 
accompany Joliet. Eleven years later the Sieur de La Salle gave to 
the noble river, which he descended to its mouth, the name Colbert, 
in honor of the great minister of France whose friendship he en- 
joyed. A century and a half before the Spaniard De Soto had given 
to the river the name Rio Grande del Espiritu Santo. 

The name the Spaniard gave, the many names given by the 
Frenchmen, are to be found only on maps yellow with age; on the 
modern map there survives, as is meet, the name given by the abo- 
rigines. The orthography has been most varied, for geographers 
who sought to convey in modern spelling the pronunciation of the 
old Algonkin word rarely agreed. Thus the old maps, and the old 
chronicles of travelers, have included these forms of the word Mis- 

101 



102 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

sissippi: Mechisipi, Messasipi, Micissippi, Miscissipy, Misasipi, Mis- 
chasippi, Missesipie, Mississippy. 

The definition usually given of the word Mississippi is "father 
of waters." This is far from a literal translation of the word de- 
rived from the Algonkin language, one of the original tongues of the 
continent. The historian, Shea, who made a study of aboriginal 
philology, says that the word Mississippi is a compound of the word 
Missi, signifying great, and Sepe, a river. The former is 
variously pronounced Missil, or Michil, as in Michilimack- 
inac; Michi, as in Michigan; Missu, as in Missouri, and Missi, 
as In Mississippi. The word Sipi may be considered as the 
English pronunciation of Sepe, derived through the medium of the 
French, and "affords an instance of an Indian term of much melody 
being corrupted by Europeans into one that has a harsh and hissing 
sound." 

An interesting, but apparently unauthentic version of the ver- 
sion of the meaning of the word Mississippi is given in an old num- 
ber of The Magazine of American History. The writer quotes a tradi- 
tion given in Heckewelder's "Indian Natioins," according to which 
two large tribes emigrated several centuries ago, from west of the 
Mississippi, giving to that stream the name of Nawoesi Sipu, or River 
of Pish, whence the present name is derived. These two tribes, the 
Lenni Lenape and the Mengwe, uniting their forces, made war on 
the prior occupants of the country, the Allegheny Indians, and drove 
them southwards out of the territory east of the Mississippi. The 
name Mengwe seems in time to have been corrupted into Mingo and 
came into use to designate the confederate tribes known as the Iro- 
quois, or Six Nations. 

Lake Michigan was the last of the five great inland seas of 
the continent concerning which the early cartographers derived 
knowledge. The old maps call it Lake Illinois (Illinovik, Ilinois, etc.), 
after the tribe of Indians that dwelt on its southern border; and 
Lake Dauphin, after the heir to the throne of Prance. Lake Mitchi- 
ganons is the term used in the old Jesuit Relation (1670-1), and a 
Paris map of 1688 labels it Lake Michigami. Most of the early 
French maps give preference to the word Illinois in its various ren- 
derings. 

The Indian word, which has outlived the European names, is 
variously interpreted to mean "fish weir," and "great lake." Some 
authorities maintain that the word is derived from Mitchaw, "great," 
and Sagiegan, "lake." This seems to be the most plausible explana- 
tion. The assumption that the meaning is weir, or fish-trap, is 
based on the shape of the lake. 

As with other geographical names derived from Inaian sources, 
the real meaning of the word Wisconsin is so obscure as to be in 
dispute. The popular translation is "wild, rushing channel," a defi- 



The Story of the State. 103 

nition that accords well with the nature of the stream, but which 
nevertheless is of doubtful authenticity. Another rendering, "the 
gathering of the waters," is pronounced absurd by students of the 
Algonkin tongue. 

It is claimed by Consul W. Butterfield that the name is derived 
from the physical features of its lower course, where are observable 
the high lands or river hills. "Some of these hills present high and 
precipitous faces towards the water. Others terminate in knobs. The 
name is supposed to have been taken from this feature, the word 
being derived from Missi, 'great,' and Os-sin, 'a stone, or rock.' " 

The word Wisconsin is the result of considerable change from 
the first rendering. On Marquette's map, where the stream is indi- 
cated for the first time, the word is spelled Meskousing. Joliet's map 
gives it as Miskonsing. Friar Hennepin wrote it Onisconsin and 
again Misconsin, and the French traveler Charlevoix, who visited 
this country early in the last century, gave his preference to this 
form: Ouisconsing. It was not long before the final letter was 
dropped, and this form was retained until the present English spell- 
ing superseded the French version, and the harsher English pro- 
nunciation the euphonious French. 

From its source in Lake Vieux Desert, on the northern boundary 
line, the stream flows througn this state for four hundred and fifty 
miles. Its descent from the lake to where, at Prairie du Chien, it 
debouches into the Mississippi, is about a thousand feet. From the 
famous portage that has played such an important part in Western 
history, where the Wisconsin turns to the southwest, the current is 
exceedingly rapid, and the distance to the mouth a hundred and 
eighteen miles. Early travelers, as those of to-day, were impressed 
with the remarkable picturesque beauty of the stream. 

The Indian name for Lake Superior was Kitchi-Gami, or, as 
Longfellow has rendered it, Gitohee-Gumee. The name is derived 
from the Ojibwa tongue, its English equivalent being "big water." 
Lac de Tracy was a French appellation given in honor of Gen. Tracy, 
but it was not sufficiently popular to take firm root. On some of the 
old maps of the seventeenth century this great fresh-water sea is 
given the name of Grand Lac des Nadouessi. The latter word was 
the appellation by which the French usually designated the Sioux 
Indians. It was at the western end of the lake that the Sioux were 
wont to come in war parties for sudden raids on the villages of their 
old-time foes, the Ojibwas. 

Lake Superior is the only one of the five great lakes that has 
retained the name Frenchmen gave it — ^Superieur, or Upper Lake. 
This is the more remarkable in that legendary lore is associated with 
every island in this lake, and headland and bay on its shores. The 
Indian fairies known as pukwudjinees had their fabled home along 
the southern shore of Lake Superior, their most noted habitations 



104 Leading Events of Wiscou'iin History. 

being the great sand dunes. This pigmy folk is happily described 
In Longfellow's "Hiawatha." 

Early travelers on Lake Superior ascribe the origin of the legend 
of the pukwudjinees to the mirage, a phenomenon that can be 
observed frequently on this lake on summer days. The German trav- 
eler, Kohl, saw a tall, bluish island, with which the mirage played 
in an infinity of ways. At times it "rose in the aar to a spectral 
height, then sank and faded away; again, islands appeared hovering 
over one another in the air; islands appeared, turned upside down; 
and the white surf of the beach, translated aloft, seemed like the 
smoke of artillery blazing away from a fort." 

Another traveler describes imagery so clearly defined as to be 
seeming reality: "It occurred just as the sun was setting. The sky 
was overcast with such a thick haze as precedes a storm; and the 
inverted images of twelve vessels — with the full outlines of the rig- 
ging, as well as the sails and other parts — were most distinctly visi- 
ble on the darkened background." Again, "a blue coast stretched 
along the horizon in front of us. Surprised, I referred to Bayfield's 
accurate chart, and found, as I expected, no land so near in that 
direction. The pilot told me it was a mirage." 

It seems singular that of all the great lakes, the one most closely 
identified with Indian tradition and legend is the only one that bears 
a name of European origin. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SOME ERRORS OF GEOGRAPHY. 

Curious misconceptions concerning the Mississippi basin and 
great lakes region appear on the old maps. English cartographers 
were behind their French colleagues in tracing the meanderings of 
the rivers and the lines of the lakes. Long after the French map- 
makers had begun to infuse accuracy into their delineations the car- 
tographers across the channel were copying the old mistakes. The 
French were in possession, and their maps were the result of actual 
knowledge; the English had to rely on sources far from reliable for 
their map material. In 1632 Champlain drew a map that gave some 
form to the great lakes. At that date no white man had seen the 
broad expanse of either i^ake Michigan or Lake Superior, but 
Indians had told of their existence, and from their descriptions the 
father of New France traced their forms. It was therefore excusable 
that his map locates Green Bay north of Superior; possibly Cham- 
plain may have meant it to represent Lake Michigan, for both these 
waters bore the name of the Puans. 

How the old maps perpetuated erroneous ideas of topography is 
shown by an English atlas printed about 1690 by John Seller, "hydro- 
grapher to the king." This atlas minimus, about 2 inches by 3^^ 
in size, merges the five great lakes in one and makes them appear 
as a great arm of Hudson's bay. 

There were maps extant a quarter of a century before this, giv- 
ing a fairly accurate conception of this region, which the "hydro- 
grapher to the king" could have copied with profit. 

Strange shapes were given some of the lakes in the old maps. 
Friar Hennepin's map of 1683 gives Lake Erie the appearance of a 
Scotch bagpipe, and it is represented as having a size almost double 
that of Lake Michigan. This lake Hennepin labels Lac Dauphin, and 
gives it a shape distorted beyond recognition. On the same map 
Fox river runs across Wisconsin due west almost to the Mississippi, 
and the Wisconsin river in comparison is but a short stream. It took 
a long period to efface the first impression that the Wisconsin did 
not have its source in a large pond somewhere in the middle of what 
is now the state that bears its name. 

The Joutel map of 1713 unduly prolongs the Green Bay arm of 
Lake Michigan; the map-maker makes it extend within a short dis- 
tance of the Mississippi river. Edward Well's map of 1699 follows 
Hennepin's conception of Fox river, and a body of water, possibly 
meant for Lake Winnebago, is located more than half way towards 
the Mississippi river. The famous Marquette and Joliet maps — ^the 
latter drawn from memory — are the earliest maps of the Mississippi 

105 



106 Leading Events of ^Yisconsin History. 

river basin based on actual knowledge. Joliet depicts Lake Michi- 
gan (Lac des Illinois) in form akin to a banana; on Marquette's map 
the form is not so narrow, nor so well defined. 

In comparing the Joliet and Marquette maps, the observations 
of the same trip being embodied in them, E. D. Neill notes these dif- 
ferences: "Joliet marks the large island toward the extremity of 
Lake Superior, known as Isle Royale; but he gives no name, and he 
indicates four other islands on the north shore. Marquette shows 
the large island only, but without a name. Joliet gives the name 
Miskonsing to the river, and marks the portage; while Marquette 
gives no names. . . Joliet calls the Mississippi, Riviere de Buade, 
and Marquette names it R. de la Conception." 

Although his canoe had breasted its waves, and in general he 
was a keen observer. Baron La Hontan conceived the idea that Lake 
Michigan ought to be tilted on the map so as to point at a sharp 
angle from the southwest to the northeast. Green Bay, or Baye des 
Puants, as he calls it, shows a width less than that of Fox river, 
which he terms Riviere des Puants. This river he causes to run 
from a northwesterly direction, from a point some distance west- 
ward, where it turns sharply from the opposite direction at the con- 
fluence of two other streams. Lake Winnebago is not put down on 
the map, but a large body of water shaped like an egg is given as 
the source of the Ovisconsink, as he spells the Wisconsin river. 

On the old maps can be traced the gradual exploration of the 
Western country. Inaccurate as they were, they located approxi- 
mately not only the physical features of the region, but designated 
the habitations of the different Indian tribes and the pioneer set- 
tlements. Taken collectively, they tell the story of European migra- 
tion, and the crowding out of the Indian possessors of the soil. The 
names upon the maps give in epitome the successive stages of coloni- 
zation. 



CHAPTER V. 

UNDER THE FLAG OF ENGLAND. 

On the plains of Abraham, in 1760, painted warriors from the 
woods and prairies of Wisconsin fought under the fleur-de-lis of 
France. New France fell, and the savages accepted the change with 
true Indian stoicism. Their indifference may have been partly due 
to the fact that the change of flag did not materially disturb their 
relations with the French for many years to come. The red-coats of 
England marched into the tumble-down stockade at Green Bay, but 
in the woods French fur-traders still roamed as before and frater- 
nized with the Indians. And, if the English were not inclined to 
treat the Indians as brothers, at least they paid good prices for pel- 
tries. 

The British flag floated in Wisconsin for the first time on the 
12th day of October, 1761. Detachments of the Royal American regi- 
ment, commanded by Capt. Balfour and Lieut. James Gorrell, 
arrived at Green Bay on that day to take possession. They found the 
post deserted and in a dismal state of dilapidation. 

"We found the fort quite rotten, the stockade ready to fall, the 
houses without cover, our fire wood far off, and none to be got when 
the river closed," Lieut. James Gorrell wrote in his journal. 

The journal of the English lieutenant, which is in the possession 
of the Maryland Historical society, is the chief authority for the 
incidents connected with the first British occupation of Wisconsin. 
It gives an excellent description of life at this then remote frontier 
post, and the dangers that surrounded the English garrison. 

The French had called the stockade Fort St. Francis. Capt. Bal- 
four, as the union-jack climbed to the peak of the flagstaff, gave it a 
new name — Fort Edward Augustus. Two days of the cheerless life 
at the crumbling fort seem to have been enough for the captain, 
and he departed for Michilimackinac. Lieut. Gorrell, who was left 
in command, had under him one sergeant, one corporal and flfteen 
privates. A French interpreter and two English traders shared the 
comfortless barracks with the soldiers. 

Although the Englishmen had taken possession of the post with- 
out firing a gun, they learned subsequently that it had been planned 
to massacre the garrison on their arrival. When the Frenchmen at 
the Bay learned that the British were coming, they urged the In- 
dians to ambush the detachment. They represented the weakness 
of the soldiers and the ease with which the party could be cut off. 
The young warriors readily assented to the proposition, but a wise 
old chief of the Sacs influenced them to avoid a conflict and to go on 

107 



108 



Leading Events of Wisconsin Eistory. 



a great hunt instead. When the English arrived there was but one 
family of Indians at the Bay village. 

In the spring the Indians returned from their great winter hunt, 
and Lieut. Gorrell busied himself in winning their good-will. He 
had six belts made, one for each nation that visited the place. As 
the French had always liberally supplied the Indians, Lieut. Gorrell 
soon discovered that only the most generous liberality would 
enable him to counteract French intrigues. He gave them ammuni- 
tion, and to some of the old men he sent flour. He then proceeded to 




Oldest Building in Wisconsin. 
(Above is a representation of the so called Ducharme house at Kaukauna, 
popularly believed to be the cabin constructed in the last century by the fur- 
traders Ducharme. It is really the old Grignon house, partly reconstructed, 
and was built in 1813. The Ducharme house was erected about the year 
1790. A large Indian village was then located at the Grand Kakalin, and the 
Ducharmes put up their log structure as a trading post. Jean Ducharme, whose 
son built the house, was one of the best known fur traders connected with 
the Bay settlement. It was he who, in the spring of 1780, led a large Indian 
expedition against the Spanish settlements of the Upper Mississippi.) 

hold councils with the chiefs. He managed his negotiations with 
adroitness. Meeting the chiefs of the Folles Avoines (Nation of 
"Wild Oats), he presented strings of waupum and belts made of the 
same material, and then addressed them in this wise: 

"Brothers! — As you may have lost some of your brothers in the 
war in which you imprudently -engaged with the French against your 
brothers, the English, and though by it you ought to have brought 
a just indignation upon you, yet we will condescend so far to forget 
whatever hath happened, that I am glad to take this opportunity to 



The Story of the State. 109 

condole you on the loss you have met with. At the same time, by 
these belts I wipe away all the blood that was spilt, and bury all 
your brothers' bones that remain unburied on the face ol the earth, 
that they may grieve no more, as my intention is henceforward not 
to grieve but to rejoice among you. 

"Brothers! — I hope also by these belts to open a passage to your 
hearts, so that you may always speak honestly and truly, and drive 
away from your hearts all that may be bad, that you may, like your 
brothers, the English, think of good things only. I light also a fire 
of pure friendship and concord, w^hich affords a heat sweet and 
agreeable to those who draw nigh unto it; and I light it for all In- 
dian nations that are willing to draw nigh unto it. I also clear a 
great road from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same, and 
clear it from all obstructions, that all nations may travel in it freely 
and safely." 

There was much more said by Lieut. Gorrell, of the same tenor. 
If his rhetoric had little effect, his gifts exercised some influence. 
The chiefs responded with expressions of good will, promised to 
befriend the English traoers, to become true and loyal subjects of the 
king of England and to turn a deaf ear to the blandishments of the 
French. 

Under date of August 21, Lieut. Gorrell notes in his journal that 
"a party of Indians came from Milwacky and demanded credit, which 
was refused." They also complained of an English trader among 
them that had tried to impose on them. This is the first mention of 
Milwaukee, and proves that an Indian village of sufficient importance 
to attract an English trader was located here in 1762. The name of 
the trader, doubtless the first Englishman to abide at Milwaukee, is 
not given. 

In the month of June, 1763, news of the most alarming nature 
reached Lieut. Gorrell. Ten Ottawas and a Frenchman brought a 
letter from Capt. Etherington, commandant of Michilimackiuac, 
apprising him that that fort had been taken by Indians, and entreat- 
ing Gorrell to evacuate Fort Edward Augustus and come to his relief 
at L'Arbre Croche. Twenty men of the garrison had been slaugh- 
tered. Etherington and eleven others had been saved by friendly 
Ottawas. 

It was the beginning of the great Pontiac conspiracy. This re- 
markable Indian brought about a confederation of many Western 
tribes for a general attack on the British. It had been planned to 
take all the posts on the same day. The crafty brain of Pontiac con- 
ceived numerous strategems for gaining entrance into the forts. At 
Detroit the chiefs were to ask for a council. They were to hide their 
rifles under their blankets, and at Pontiac's signal were to fall upon, 
the unsuspecting garrison. An Indian woman betrayed the plot, and 
it miscarried. At Miohilimackinac the Indians gathered in front of 



110 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

the fort to play their game of baggatiway, called by the French le jeu 
de la crosse. The garrison gathered outside the pickets to watch 
the game, which soon became exciting. The ball, as if by accident, 
flew over the pickets and the Indians followed it pell mell. Once 
within, the design of the Indians became manifest. Tomahawks 
flashed, and the war yell was heard, as the British soldiers fell 
beneath the savage onslaught of the Indians. Frenchmen were 
present, but none of them were injured. 

Doubtless Pontiac's emissaries had also been busy among the 
Indians of Wisconsin. Those at the Bay proved loyal to Britisih 
interests. When Lieut. Gorrell received Btherington's urgent mes- 
sage, he prepared to evacuate. With his usual shrewd diplomacy, 
Lieut. Gorrell distributed presents among the Indians, told them that 
he was about to go to the aid of his fellow soldiers across the lake, 
and asked them to take care of the fort during his absence. Many of 
the Indians accompanied him, and proved of material service. Upon 
reaching Beaver island, signal smokes were curling upwards in many 
parts of the island, and preparations were made for battle. The 
Wild Oats Indians stripped for action, the English boat was placed in 
the center, and the flotilla moved forward in battle array. Instead 
of being hostile the Indians on the island proved to be friendly 
Ottawas bearing another message from Etherington. "The Ohippe- 
was continue their mischief," he wrote. "They have plundered all 
the canoes they have met with since I wrote to you last, and are 
now encamped on the great island near the fort." 

Lieut. Gorrell succeeded finally in joining the forces of Ethering- 
ton, and together they made their way to Montreal. 

Thus abandoned, Fort Edward Augustus again fell into decay. 
Once more the French were left in undisturbed quiet, and a charac- 
teristic community grew up at the Bay. English traders came and 
went, but the English flag did not again wave over the stockades of 
Wisconsin until half a century had elapsed. 



Hawnopawjatin tA^^^^K___ his mark 




Otohtongoomlisheaw ^^^^ <\>1_ ^^ mark. 

Indian Signatures to Carver's Deed. 

(The famous deed from. Indians, on the strength of which Carver's heirs 
claimed ownership of 14,000 square miles of land in Wisconsin, it is claimed, was 
stolen. At any rate it disappeared from the office of Dr. John C. Lettsom, who 
claimed to have it in his possession after Carver's death. The deed conveyed 
to Carver the whole of the counties of Eau Claire, Pepin. St. Croix, Dunn, 
Barron, Pierce, Washburn, Chippewa, Clark, Taylor. Price and Sawyer, and 
sections of the counties of Ashland, Polk, Burnett, Lincoln, Marathon, Wood, 
Jackson, Trempealeau and Buffalo.) 



CHAPTER VI. 

FIRST PERMANENT SETTLERS OF WISCONSIN. 

It was shortly after the evacuation of Fort Edward Augustus 
that there came to Wisconsin its first permanent white settlers. 
Augustin de Langlade and his son Charles were destined to have 
their names inseparably associated with the history of Wisconsin. 
The elder Langlade, who was a fur trader at Miohilimackinac as 
early as 1727, married an Indian woman of the Ottawa tribe and a 
sister of an influential chief. Charles Michael Langlade was one of 
their sons. The priests of the mission station interested themselves 
in the young half-breed, but Indian instinct for forest lore was 
stronger than European thirst for book knowledge; he manifested 
more pleasure in learning the use of the scalping knife than in conn- 
ing the alphabet. When but a mere lad he accompanied his Indian 
uncle, whom the French called La Fourche (The Fork), on the war 
path. As he grew to manhood, young Langlade obtained remarkable 
influence over the Ottawas. 

Years before the Langlades went to Green Bay to make it their 
permanent home — thus 'forming the nucleus of the first permanent 
settlement in Wisconsin (about 1764) — they had frequently visited 
that trading post. When the Fi'ench captain, deVilliers, was shot to 
the heart by the Indian boy Blackbird, the raid on the Sac village 
that was undertaken to avenge the Frenchman's deatJi was led by 
Charles Langlade. Engaged as they were in the Indian trade, the 
father and son made frequent journeys between the Bay post and the 
Great Turtle, but they do not seem to have shared in the plunder 
that fell into the coffers of the officials at Quebec and Montreal. It 
was a period of bold official corruption. Supplies sent by the French 
government for the Indian trade, such as knives, hatchets and 
trinkets, were diverted so as to put the proceeds into the pockets of 
the dishonest government representatives. The governor's brother 
and the commandant at Green Bay are said to have pocketed within 
a brief period the enormous sum of 312,000 francs. The Indian trade 
had grown to large proportions; it is recorded that annually there 
were needed at Green Bay post for this barter $18,000 worth of 
trinkets. In the midst of this corruption the Langlades seem to 
have dealt honestly. 

When the French sent an expedition into the Ohio country to 
frustrate English attempts at colonization, in 1749, tihe younger 
Langlade commanded the Indian contingent — ^a greased and painted 
rabble Parkman calls them. They attacked the post of Pickawillany 
and plundered it completely. An Indian chief of the Miamis and 



112 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



eleven of his warriors were killed, and Langlade's Ottawa cannibals 
put the chief into the kettle and ate him. 

Having proven his prowess in war, Langlade determined to 
marry and settle down to peaceful pursuits. A young Frenchwoman 
named Charlotte Ambroisine Bourassa became his bride, August 12, 
1754. Their descendants live in Wisconsin to-day. Madame Lang- 







Pauquette Making a Portage. 



lade was fairly well educated, and was desci'ibed as "remarkably 
beautiful, having a slender figure, regular features and very dark 
eyes. These physical gifts were allied to rare moral qualities, which 
secured her a general respect at Michilimackinac, and afterwards at 
Green Bay." According to accounts of the period, she feared the 
Indians greatly and her experiences at Green Bay caused her to suf- 
fer keenly. The sight of Indians invariably gave her a strong nerv- 



The Story of the State. 113 

ous shock. At one time it was reported that hostile Indians were 
about to attaclc Green Bay. In mortal fear she hid under a pile of 
boards; when found, she seemed almost paralyzed with fear. On 
another occasion she locked herself into her room to escape from a 
party of Indians who entered her house on a visit. The Indians 
seated themselves around the room, except one. Madame Langlade, 
to observe their movements, slightly opened the door behind which 
she sought safety, and seeing this Indian standing in the middle of 
the room, imagined he was awaiting an opportunity to kill her. In 
a fi-enzy of fear, she seized a long knife, rushed into the room and 
desperately attempted to stab him. 

"You rogue, you are a dead man," she screamed, as she made a 
lunge at him. The Indians saw that she was beside herself with 
terror, and laughed good-naturedly at her futile attempt to stab their 
companion. They easily disarmed her, but it was only when her 
husband quietly spoke to her that her terror was allayed. 

From the Langlade cabin door a view of the river stretch could 
be had. Often when she saw a canoe with Indians approaching, ter- 
ror would almost overcome the sensitive young Frenchwoman. "They 
are coming, they are coming," she would say in despair. "We shall 
all be massacred." 

The honeymoon of the Langlades was hardly at an end when the 
young man was summoned to go on the warpath against the British. 
This was while the Langlades still made Michilimackinac their home. 
It was the year 1755 that Gen. Braddock's army of English red-coats, 
with the confidence born of victory on European battlefields, marched 
against Fort Duquesne. George Washington and his provincials 
marched with them. It was for the defense of the French fort and 
against the regulars of England and the provincials of Virginia that 
Langlade raised a band of 800 paint-bedaubed warriors. Joining a 
French and Canadian command under Beaujeu, Langlade and his 
Indians marched to ambush the enemy. 

A grandson of Langlade's, Augustin Grignon, has left an account 
of the massacre as he heard it from the lips of his grandfather: 
"Spies were sent out to discover the enemy's approach, and they 
soon returned, reporting that Braddock's army was within a half a 
day's march of the Monongahela, cutting a road as they advanced. 
It was determined that M. Beaujeu, with what French could be 
spared, and the Indian force under de Langlade, should go out and 
meet the enemy at the Monongahela and attack them while crossing 
that stream. The English got to the south bank of the Monongahela 
about noon, halted and prepared for dinner; while the French and 
Indians were secreted on the other shore." 

The account goes on to tell that Beaujeu at first refused to con- 
sent to Langlade's plan for an attack while the English were 
eating. At last Langlade's stinging remark that if Beaujeu didn't 



114 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

intend to do any fighting his conduct could be explained, spurred the 
French commander to action. He gave the word and a deadly fire 
was poured into the ranks of the surprised Englishmen. 

"The English officers," Grignon's account continues, "who had 
their little towels pinned over their breasts, seized their arms and 
took part in the conflict; and a good many of them were killed with 
these napkins still pinned on their coats — showing how suddenly 
they rushed into the battle. The English, occupying the lowest 
ground, almost invariably overshot the French, and their cannon 
balls would strike the trees half way up among the branches. In the 
battle Beaujeu was killed, but the French and Indian loss was very 
small; and the most who were killed and injured were not killed by 
the bullets of the enemy; but by the falling limbs cut from the trees 
by the overshooting of the English cannon." 

The slaughter of the English was frightful. Braddock was mor- 
tally wounded, and but for the presence of mind of George Wash- 
ington and his provincials, who were accustomed to Indian warfare, 
and whose advice the arrogant English general had loftily ignored, 
few of the soldiers would have escaped the tomahawk and scalping 
knife. Of the eighty-six British officers, sixty-three were killed; 
they had worn splendid uniforms, this being their initial campaign 
since their arrival from Great Britain, and Langlade's braves 
stripped the fallen men and bedecked themselves with the raiment of 
their foes. Many of them brought these trophies to their lodges In 
"Wisconsin, to strut in captured finery before the admiring and en- 
vious Indians who had not joined the expedition. And with them 
they brought as evidence of their prowess the scalp locks of Brad- 
dock's men to hang on their lodgepoles. More than half a thousand 
Englishmen had lost their lives as the result of their commander's 
obstinacy. 

In the bloody massacre at Fort William Henry, the braves of 
Langlade were at the front. Langlade's services were rewarded 
by the French governor, who conferred upon him the rank of lieu- 
tenant, placed him second in command at Michilimackinac and 
allowed him a salary of 1,000 francs per annum. Two years later he 
again. gathered his Indians, to the number of 200, and his flotilla of 
canoes made the journey to Quebec to join the standard of the gal- 
lant Montcalm. Menomonees, Sacs, Foxes and Chippewas from Wis- 
consin mingled with his Ottawa kinsmen on this expedition. It was 
here that Langlade perfonned a service to the French cause, which, 
but for the stupidity or delay of others, would have prevented the 
capture of the great French stronghold and changed the history of 
North America. With 400 Indian warriors, Langlade was fording the 
Montmorenci river when they discovered British troops executing 
the movement planned by Gen. Wolfe, of landing below the cataract 
and climbing the heights. With keen discernment of the strategic 



The Story of the State. 115 

possibilities involved, the French partisan sent word to the French 
officer Levis that an immediate attack would result in the annihi- 
lation of the maneuvering force, comprising a third of the British 
army. Hours elapsed while the French officers leisurely debated 
what to do, and the opportunity was lost. After having lain flat on 
the ground for five hours, waiting for the French to appear, Lan- 
glade's braves impetuously assaulted the English. 

In the war archives at Paris there is preserved this notice of 
their valiant attack: "They were so impetuous, as we were sub- 
sequently told by a sergeant who had deserted to the enemy, and 
two Canadians, their prisoners, that the English were obliged to 
fight, retreating more than 200 paces from the place of combat be- 



MARQUE DE WABISUINE. 
DB L'ATTRIBUT DE J } t/MQLK 



MARQUE DU TABAC NOIR. 





Signatures to the Kaukauna Deed. 1793. 

(The entire site whereon Kaukauna has been built was deeded in 1793 to 
Dominick Duchrame for two barrels of rum, well mixed. The curious deed, 
written in French, is on file in the records of Brown County. This is an extract 
from the document; "The said vendors are contented and satisfied for two bar- 
rels of rum. In faith of which they have made their marks, the old Wabisipine 
being blind, the witnesses have made his mark for him." The sons of the blind 
Wabisipine (Eagle) later claimed the land, but were "contented and satisfied" to 
quitclaim their ownership for sundry barrels of rum, mixed "a mes sines." 
Their signatures are appended to the deed as follows: The Eagle, Black Tobacco, 
The Drinker, The Beaver, etc.) 

fore they could rally. The alarm was communicated even to the 
main camp, to which Gen. Wolfe had returned. The savages, see- 
ing themselves almost entirely surrounded, effected a ratreat after 
having killed or wounded more than 150 men, losing only two or 
three of their own number. They met at the ford of the river Mont- 
morenci, the detachment coming to their support, which M. de Levis 
had been unwilling to take the responsibility of sending until he 
had received an order of M. de Vaudreuil." 

On the plains of Abraham, on the fatal day when Wolfe died In 
the flush of victory and Montcalm in the shadow of defeat, Lang- 
lade fought fiercely for the French cause. His two brothers fell 
by his side. It is related of Langlade that "he seemei to delight to 



116 Lradiii!/ Events of Wisconsin History. 

be in the midst of the din of arms and the yells of the combatants. 
A succession of rapid discharges having heated his gun to such a de- 
gree that he could not use it again for a few minutes, he drew his 
pipe from his pocket, filled it with tobacco, struck fire with the aid 
of his tinder box, then lighted it, appearing so calm amidst the can- 
nonade and the whistling of bullets as if he had been tranquilly 
seated by the fire in bivouac." 

When Quebec surrendered, Langlade returned to his home at 
the outlet of Lake Michigan. Some time after British garrison:^ 
marched to the outposts of France and occupied them. French rule 
was at an end, and the Langlades entered the employ of the new 
rulers. When Pontiac was spreading sedition among the Western 
Indians, Langlade endeavored to warn Capt. Etherington of the 
threatened massacre, but the Englishman paid no attention to the 
warning. It has been charged that when the massacre occurred, 
Langlade made no attempt to protect the unfortunate Englishmen; 
on the other hand, the claim is made that but for his interposition, 
Etherington and the few soldiers who escaped the tomahawk, would 
also have lost their lives. Probably, the Langlades acted as 
humanely as the circumstances permitted. After the war, Langlade 
was stationed at the head of the Indian department of Green Bay. 
He seems to have managed affairs with prudence and ability, and to 
have won the confidence of the British. A letter has been preserved 
written him by Capt. Arent S. de Peyster, commandant at Michlli- 
mackinac, that shows that the English wanted to retain his 
good will. 

"I send you eighty pounds of tobacco," Capt. de Peyster wrote 
April 18, 1777, "a sack of corn — ground, in order that the gentlemen 
may not compel their wives to grind it — two barrels of sco-ta-wa-bo 
(whisky) that they may not drive you wild. Besides, I send my 
best respects to Madame Langlade, and beg her to accept two kegs 
of brandy, one barrel of salt, a small barrel of rice, and twenty 
pounds of tobacco, if necessary. I also send for madame a sack of 
one hundred and twenty-three pounds of flour, as a present. These, 
Monsieur, are all the gifts I am able to send you at present." 

Ever loyal to his employers, Langlade sided with the British 
during the revolutionary war. He raised a large force of Wiscon- 
sin Indians to march against George Rogers Clark in the Illinois 
country, but the surrender of the British general, Hamilton, occurred 
before he could go to his relief. Previous to this time, he had 
gone to Montreal at the head of a band of Indians, and joined the 
invading army of Burgoyne. His fierce warriors became disgruntled 
in consequence of the restraints imposed by that humane general, 
and left for home in disgust. In 1780 Langlade headed an expedi- 
tion to Prairie du Chien to take charge of a large quantity of furs 
stored there, which it was feared would fall into the hands of the 



The Storu of the State. 117 



Americans under George Rogers Clark. He successfully accom- 
plished his mission. 

Langlade's old age was spent in serenity at Green Bay. He had 
received valuable grants of land, and he obtained an annuity of $800 
from the British government for his past services. He lived in com- 
fort till his death occurred, in 1800, eighteen years before that of 
his wife. Gathering his grandchildren about him, he was v/ont to 
tell them the story of his eventful life, and of the ninety-nine bat- 
tles and skirmishes wherein he had taken part. Following a Can- 
adian custom, the people of Green Bay on each recurring first of 
May raised a flag pole in his honor, and emphasized the ceremony 
by cheers and volleys of musketry. It was a token of the affection- 
ate reverence that the simple-hearted people of the settlement enter- 
tained for their militia commandant. 

The name the Indians gave Langlade was A-ke-wau-ge-ke- 
tan-so, meaning He-who-is-fierce-for-the-land, their way of express 
ing a military conqueror. 



„^^ I ^ — So/! pour UNE Piaftrc l • f f i 



Arnjy Bill Office. Qutlx-c. 

^ ^riC Dollar, redeemable at this Offcc (Facsimile of money received by 

•"ff by Government Mm. «f/tf ,. ' ' Green Bay volunteers in the British 

^ y uovernment jgnis of (Bxchavqt on London, service during the war of 1812. It is 

tiog *' Thirty Days Sight. ' surmised that although the word bon 

uog (good) is repeated seventeen times 

nog - ^> °''<''"/ •>" Ctmmamjtr ,f ^, f,,„j^ OH the bill, the money was at such 

uog Eotertd, ' discount that it was not worth while 

uog trying to redeem it.) 

VO(J 

Five Skilltngs. (() G. AT' 

No. [26] Michilimackintu, [/rf May] iSiSj\ 

(Probably the earliest forms of 
Good for FOUR DOLLARS, payable by Drafts paper currency in actual circulation 

in Wisconsin v/as that paid to the 
on Quebec, or Montreal creditors of the British government 

in the Northwest during the war of 
1812. Accompanying is a facsimile 



FOUR DOLLARS rr H MriMiri °^ ^^® '°'''" issued by the commii- 

ruuK. uuLLAKb . [G.. H. MONK] gary at Michilimackinac. The brack- 

. eted portion was written in with 

Deputy Assistant Commissary General. P®°- 

FIRST PAPER MONEY CIRCULATED IN WISCONSIN. 
DURING THE WAR OF 1812. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ALEXANDER HENRY, THE FUR TRADER. 

In the train of the English soldiers who marched to take pos- 
session of the Western forts, after the fall of New France, came 
adventurous fur traders. Under French dominion, Englishmen who 
had attempted to penetrate to the beaver country for barter had 
found the way barred by French hostility and the Indian's prefer- 
ence for Frenchmen. As early as 1762 an Englishman was at the site 
of Milwaukee; evidently he sought to drive shrewd bargains — judging 
from the complaint made by the Indians to the commandant at Fort 
Edward Augustus (Green Bay). Two years after the evacuation of 
that post, the exclusive trade of the Lake Superior region was pro- 
cured by a young fur trader named Alexander Henry, a native of 
New Jersey. This young man had been at Michilimackinac when 
its garrison was massacred by Indians, and was saved from the 
tomahawk by a Pawnee girl who was a slave in the household of 
Charles Langlade. She hid him in the garret of the Langlade house. 
In the journal of Alexander Henry, a graphic picture is given of the 
slaughter of his countrymen, and the Langlades are represented as 
having shown great unconcern regarding the fate of the English. 
In the garret of their cabin Henry found refuge, until Langlade 
turned him over to the Indians — doubtless fearing for the safety of 
his own household should the Englishman be found beneath his 
roof by the savages. Henry took a different view, and in his journal 
bitterly denounces the act. 

The travels and adventures of Alexander Henry are minutely 
described by him in his journal, which is one of the most interest- 
ing narratives of individual experiences descriptive of that stormy 
period. Henry was a keen observer, and his accounts of hunts and 
Indian customs are not only entertainingly told, but contain a vast 
amount of information. 

Like all the traders of this period Henry made Michilimackinac 
the base of his operations. Here he bought enough goods on a year's 
credit to equip four canoes, and hired twelve men to convey them to 
his wintering ground at Chequamegon. Until long after this period 
(1765) there was no coin of the realm in circulation at this outpost, 
and peltries were the medium of exchange. Beaver was the stand- 
ard, and all accounts were kept in beaver. If beaver furs were not 
available, otter and marten were accepted, on the basis of their pro- 
portionate value converted into beaver. The ruling Michilimackinac 
value of beaver was 2 shilling 6 pence per pound; otter skins, 6 
shillings each; marten, 1 shilling 6 pence. 

This was the sort of currency that Henry agreed to pay in ex- 
change for his outfit, the amount being ten thousand pounds of good 

lis 



The .Story of the State. 



119 



and mercliantable beaver. The wages of his men were payable in 
the same kind of currency, being reckoned at a hundred pounds 
weight of beaver each. Indeed, specie was so scarce that when the 
frontiersmen went to a cantine to procure that which inebriates if 
too liberally partaken of, they carried with them a marten's skin 
to pay the reckoning. 

In purchasing provisions Henry laid in a liberal supply of In- 
dian corn and bear's fat, for it was on this frugal fare that the boat- 
men of that day subsisted. Each man was allowed a bushel of corn 
and two pounds of fat for a month's subsistence. Such a luxury as 
a pinch of salt was not expected, and certainly not supplied. Henry 




Ramsay Crooks. 

From an Oil Painting in the Possession of the State Historical Society. 

(One of the leading fur-traders in the Wisconsin region when the- American 
Fur Company monopolized the trade, was Ramsay Crooks. He was a Scot, but 
came to America when but 16 years of age. He first visited Wisconsin ini 1806. 
Irving, in his "Astoria," has graphically told the story of the great expedition 
with which Crooks was associated.) 



bought fifty bushels of maize at ten pounds of beaver per bushel. 
He paid at the rate of a dollar per pound for the tallow or fat to 
mix with the corn. 

Upon reaching Chequamegon Henry found the Indians, who 
occupied fifty lodges there, in a state of distress. The troubles 
between the English and the French had so interrupted their trade 
as to leave them in a state of destitution. They were naked and 
almost starving, and Henry distributed among them goods amount- 
ing in value to three thousand beaver skins. To repay him, the 
Indians went on a great hunt, covering a stretch of a hundred 
leagues in their pursuit of fur-bearing animals. 



120 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

For two hundred years the curious amphibious animal which 
the French called the castor and the English the beaver, was Wis- 
consin's chief source of wealth. Alexander Henry's journal gives an 
interesting account of the method pursued in hunting this game in 
their houses under the water. 

"The common way of taking the beaver," he wrote, "is that of 
breaking up its house, which is done with trenching tools during the 
winter, when the ice is strong enough to allow of approaching them; 
and when, also, the fur is in its most valuable state. Breaking up 
the house, however, is only a preparatory step. During this opera- 
tion the family make their escape to one or more of their washes 
(holes dug under the banks as retreats in case of danger). These 
are to be discovered by striking the ice along the bank, and where 
the holes are a hollow sound is returned. After discovering and 
searching many of these in vain, we often found the whole family 
together in the same wash. I was taught occasionally to distinguish 
a full wash from an empty one by the breathing of the animals con- 
cealed in it. From the washes they must be taken out with the 
hands; and in doing this the hunter sometimes receives severe 
wounds from their teeth. While a hunter, I thought with the Indians 
that the beaver flesh was very good; but after that of the ox 
was within my reach, I could not relish it. The tail is accounted a 
luxurious morsel." 

It was a favorite pastime of Henry's to chase the raccoon. This 
is his description of the animal and its peculiarities: "It was my 
practice to go out in the evening with dogs to hunt this animal. 
The raccoon never leaves its hiding place till after sunset. As soon 
as a dog falls on a fresh track of the raccoon, he gives notice by a 
cry, and immediately pursues. This barking enables the hunter to 
follow. The raccoon, which travels slowly and is soon overtaken, 
makes for a tree, on which he remains till shot. After the falling 
of the snow, nothing more is necessary for taking the raccoon' than 
to follow the track of his feet. In this season he seldom leaves his 
habitation; and he never lays up any food. I have found six at a 
time in the hollow of one tree, lying upon each other and nearly in 
a torpid state. In more than one instance I have ascertained that 
they have lived six weeks without food. The mouse is their princi- 
pal prey. Raccoon hunting was my more particular and daily em- 
ploy. I usually went out at the first dawn of day and seldom 
returned till sunset, or till I had laden myself with as many animals 
as I could carry. By degrees I became familiarized with this kind 
of life; and had it not been for the idea of which I could not divest 
my mind, that I was living among savages, and for the whispers of 
a lingering hope that I should one day be released from it — or if I 
could have forgotten that I had ever been otherwise than I then 
was — I could have enjoyed as much happiness in this, as in any 
other situation." 



The Story of the State. 



121 



When the Indians returned from their hunt, they brought him 
quantities of furs, but demanded rum. Henry refused to give them 
any, whereupon they threatened to pillage his cabin. Henry's men 
fled, but he seized a gun and declared he would shoot the first In- 
dian who made a hostile move or seized anything in the hut. After 
a while the tumult subsided, the Indians left and Henry's cowardly 
retainers came back shame-facedly. Henry decided to take no more 
chances, and buried all the rum he possessed. After that the In- 
dians made no more trouble, but brought Henry their peltries and 
paid their debts. He joined them in their making of maple sugar 
in March, participated in their bear hunts and witnessed their 
strange ceremonials. When they went on the warpath against their 
Sioux enemies, Henry concluded to leave. He had accumulated 150 
packs of beaver, weighing 15,000 pounds, and twenty-five packs of 
otter and marten skins. Fifty canoes of Indians, carrying a hun- 
dred packs of beaver that Henry was unable to purchase, accom- 
panied him when he embarked for Michilimackinac. 

This was the last time that Alexander Henry made Wisconsin 
his headquarters, altEough he continued in the fur trade for many 
years. He died at Montreal in 1824, aged 84 years. 

One of the most readable stories of the Northwest is Mrs. Mary 
Hartwell Catherwood's "White Islander." Alexander Henry is the 
hero of this tale, his adventures at Michilimackinac being the thread 
on which the incidents of the story are strung. The novelist pic- 
tures with graphic fidelity the stirring life in the woods and on the 
waters in this region a century and a quarter ago. 




Prairie du Chien— 1835— The Rolette Home on River Shore. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CAPTAIN JONATHAN CARVER, THE TRAVELER. 

One of the first English travelers to explore the "Wisconsin 
region — and probably the most famous — was .Jonathan Carver. Some 
of his descendants live In Wisconsin to-day. Carver never made 
Wisconsin his home, but by virtue of a gift from Indians he claimed 
ownership of a large tract of land in the western part of the state 
and on the other side of the Mississippi river. He spent three yearu^ 
in traveling about this region and wrote a book that had a phe- 
nomenal sale in the old country. How eager people were to learn 
something about this then unknown country may be gathered from 
the fact that twenty-three editions of the book came from the press 
in rapid succession, and translations appeared in French, Dutch and 
German. Written in a bright, breezy fashion, and at the same time 
containing a great deal of information, it became the most popular 
book of travel of the day. The German poet, Friedrich Schiller, was 
inspired to write his poem "Nadowessie Chief's Death Song" by 
Carver's vivid description of Indian customs. 

Carver came to Wisconsin in the year 1766, but his book was 
not published till twelve years later. This was its title: 

THREE YEARS' TRAVELS THROUGH THE INTERIOR PARTS OF NORTH 
AMERICA, for More than Five Thousand Miles; Containing an Account of 
the Great Lakes and All the Lakes, Islands and Rivers, Cataracts, Moun- 
tains, Minerals, Soil and Vegetable Productions of the Northwest Regions 
of That Vast Continent; With a Description of the Birds, Beasts, Reptiles, 
Insects and Fishes Peculiar to the Country. Together With a Concise His- 
tory of the Genius, Manners and Customs of the Indians Inhabiting the 
Lands That Lie Adjacent to the Heads and to the Westward of the Great 
River Mississippi; and an Appendix Describing the Uncultivated Parts of 
America That Are Most Proper for Forming Settlements. By Captain 
Jonathan Carver of the Provincial Troops in America. 

It was an ambitious enterprise that this Connecticut soldier had 
in view when he began his 5,000 mile journey. Believing that the 
French had published inaccurate maps and likewise false accounts 
relative to the interior of the continent in order to deceive the Eng- 
lish, it was his purpose to journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
make a correct map and tell the truth about the great interior coun- 
try. He was peculiarly fitted for his task by early training along 
the Indian frontier of New England. In the bloody massacre at 
Fort William Henry he narrowly escaped the scalping knife. Two 
savages had seized him, when an English officer clad in scarlet vel- 
vet breeches opportunely hove in sight, and they left him to secure 
the larger prey. He dashed into the woods and spent three miser- 
able days and nights without food and without shelter before he 
reached the walls of Fort Edward. 

122 



Tlic Story of the State. 123 

Fitting himself out as a trader Capt. Carver reached the aban- 
doned and tumble-down fort that had borne the high-sounding title 
of Fort Edward Augustus (Green Bay) in September, 1766. A few 
families of easy-going French were living here, and he tarried oniy 
long enough to observe the surroundings and jot down a few notes 
about the vegetation and the soil. A few days later, ascending the 
Fox river, he reached the great town of the Winnebagoes on a small 
island at the entrance of the lake of that name. An Indian queen 
who was called Glory of the Morning ruled this village, and Capt. 
Carver enjoyed her hospitality for several days. He says that the 
queen "received me with great civility and entertained me in a very 
distinguished manner during the four days I continued with her," 

Despite her attractive name, the queen was not marvelously 
beautiful. "She was a very ancient woman, small in stature and 
not much distinguished by her dress from several young women that 
attended her," is the way Capt. Carver described her, and he added: 
"Her attendants seemed greatly pleased whenever I showed any 
tokens of respect for their queen, particularly when I saluted her, 
which I frequently did to acquire her favor. On these occasions the 
good lady endeavored to assume a juvenile gaiety, and by her smiles 
showed she was equally pleased with the attention I paid her." 

In departing from the village of Glory of the Morning Captain 
Carver made the queen a number of suitable presents, and received 
her blessing in return. He then proceeded along the Fox to the 
portage and thence down the Wisconsin river, or Ouisconsin as he 
spelled it. The great fields of wild rice that almost choked the 
former stream, and the myriads of wild fowl that fed on the suc- 
culent grain, attracted his attention. 

"This river is the greatest resort of wild fowl of every kind that 
I met with in the wholS course of my travels," he wrote. "Fre- 
quently the sun would be obscured by them for some minutes to- 
gether. Deer and bear are very numerous in these parts." 

From the time he left Green Bay till his canoe was beached at 
Prairie du Chien, Captain Carver had seen no trace of white men. 
Well built Indian towns greeted his view as he floated down the 
Wisconsin, but at Prairie du Chien he found the most notable town. 

"It is a large town and contain'S about 300 families," he wrote. 
"The houses are well built after the Indian manner and pleasantly 
situated on a very rich soil, from which they raised every necessary 
of life in great abundance. I saw many horses here of a good size 
and shape. This town is the great mart where all the adjacent 
tribes, and even those who inhabit the most remote branches of the 
Mississippi, annually assemble about the latter end of May, bringing 
with them the furs to dispose of to the traders. But it is not always 
that they conclude their sale here; this is determined by a general 
council of the chiefs, who consult whether it would be more condu- 



124 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



cive to their interest to sell their goods at this place or carry them 
on to Louisiana or Michilimaekinac." 

It has been claimed for Carver that he was the first traveler 
who made known to the people of Europe the existence of the 
ancient mounds found in the Mississippi valley and long believed to 
have been the work of an extinct people. This is his description of 
what he conceived to be an ancient fortification, but since assumed 
to have been an elevation to keep the wigwams of the builders above 
the annual overflow of Lake Pepin: 




Capt. Jonathan Carver. 
(From Photographic Copy of Portrait in Third London Edition. Carver's Travels.) 



"One day, having landed on the shore of the Mississippi, some 
miles below Lake Pepin, whilst my attendants were preparing their 
dinner, I walked out to take a view of the adjacent country. I had 
not proceeded far before I came to a fine, level, open plain, on which 
I perceived at a little distance a partial elevation that had the appear- 
ance of an entrenchment. On a nearer inspection, I had greater 
reason to suppose that it had really been intended for this many 
centuries ago. Notwithstanding it was now covered with grass, I 
could plainly discern that it had once been a breastwork of about 
four feet in height, extending the best part of a mile, and sufficiently 
capacious to cover five thousand men. Its form was somewhat cir- 
cular, and its flank reached to the river. Though much defaced bj-- 



The mory of the State. 125 

time, every angle was distinguishable, and appeared as regular, and 
fashioned with as much military skill, as if planned by Vauban him- 
self. The ditch was not visible, but I thought, on examining more 
curiously, that I could perceive there certainly had been one. From 
its situation also I am convinced that it must have been designed for 
this purpose. It fronted the co'untry, and the rear was covered by 
the river; nor was there any rising ground for a considerable way, 
that commanded it. A few straggling oaks were alone to be seen 
near it. In many places small tracts were worn across it by the 
feet of elks and deer, and from the depth of the bed of earth by 
which it was covered I was able to draw certain conclusions of its 
great antiquity." 

Carver spent the winter among the Sioux and explored Minne- 
sota to a considerable extent. They told him much about the coun- 
try to the west — of a great river that emptied into the Pacific; of 
the "Shining Mountains," within whose bowels could be found pre- 
cious metals, and much else that was new and wonderful. In their 
great council cave, they gave to him and to his descendants forever 
a great tract of land about 14,000 square miles in area, embracing 
the whole of the Northwestern part of Wisconsin and part of Min- 
nesota. At least this gift was afterwards made the basis for the 
famous Carver claim. The United States congress after long in- 
vestigation and consideration rejected the claim. Despite this action 
many persons were duped into purchasing land on the strength of 
Carver's Indian deed. In some of the counties of "Wisconsin there 
are still on file some of the worthless conveyances made out on this 
shadowy title. 

After spending some time in the Lake Superior region, Carver 
returned to Michilimackinac. In his little birch bark canoe he had 
made a journey of nearly one thousnd two hundred miles. He 
returned to Boston in the autumn of 1768 and proceeded thence to 
England. There ill luck pursued him. His great colonization 
schemes collapsed as fast as he planned them. In the great city of 
London this noted traveler died of starvation. 



CHAPTER IX. 

DURING THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 

Oni-y the outer ripples of the Revolutionary war reached the 
borders of Wisconsin. The patriot struggle in the tidewater col- 
onies had been in progress two years h^fore news of it reached the 
few inhabitants of rhe scattered hamlets west of Lake MichigaiJ. 
Indeed, it is doubtful whether they would have known of it even 
then, or cared much about it if they had, but for the efforts of the 
British general at Detroit to stir up the Wisconsin Indians against 
the American "Long Knives," as the Kentuckians were called. Gen. 
Hamilton was known as the "hair-buyer general" because he was 
reported to have offered a bounty for every American scalp taken 
during the conflict. When his emissaries made their tempting offer 
to the Indians villaged along the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, they 
found no difficulty in persuading some of the latter to join the stand- 
ard of the English king. They were as ready to take the scalps of 
the American frontiersmen as twenty years before they had been 
to tomahawk the very men who were now enlisting their services. 

Chief among the men who entered into the plans of the British 
was Charles Gautier, a son of Charles Langlade's sister. Like his 
famous uncle, Gautier was a dashing son of the woods, who knew 
no fear and loved adventure for adventure's sake. The British gave 
him a captain's commission during the Revolutionary war. He 
spoke the language of all the Northwestern tribes fluently, and he 
went with war belts from village to village along the Fox and Wis- 
consin. At Milwaukee he experienced some difficulty in persuading 
the renegade Indians who made this village their headquarters to 
take up the tomahawk. 

So obstinate were they that Langlade concluded to make the 
attempt in person. A grand council was held at Milwaukee (then 
known as Milwacky) and the redoubtable leader used all the elo- 
quence at his command without avail. He then decided to resort to 
an expedient which he believed would appeal to the Indian tempera- 
ment better than any argument. Joseph Tasse's memoir of Lang- 
lade thus describes the episode whereby Langlade overcame Indian 
obstinacy: 

"He erected a lodge in the midst of the Indian village, with a 
door at each end; he then had several dogs killed, preparatory to 
the dog feast, and placed the heart of one of these animals on a stick 
at each opening. This done, he invited the savages to the dog 
feast, of which they are very fond. Afterwards he chanted a war 
song, and passing around the lodge from one door to the other, 
tasted at each a piece of the dog's heart. This signified that if 

12G 



The Story of the State. 127 

brave hearts beat in bosoms of the Indians, they would follow his 
example and accompany him to war. It was an ancient custom, and 
they recognized the force of Langlade's appeal; so one after another 
they chanted the old war song and directed their steps in large num- 
bers to I'Arbre Croche." 

The efforts of Langlade and Gautier to send the Wisconsin In- 
dians on the war path against the handful of men under the gallant 
Virginian, George Rogers Clark, had but meager i-esults. The In- 
dians whom they gathered for the expedition embarked in canoes, 
but when they reached St. Joseph they learned that Gen. Hamilton 
had been captured at Fort Vincennes by Clark's Virginians and 
Kentuckians. They returned home in disgust without a single scalp. 

In the Canadian archives at Ottawa are copies of correspondence 
preserved in the British Museum at London that contain much 
information with reference to these episodes in Wisconsin history. 
Among the letters are some that Gautier wrote to the British offi- 
cials detailing his experience in sending the Wisconsin Indians on 
the war path against the American frontiersmen. This son of the 
forest was readier with tomahawk and knife than with the pen, and 
his letters are somewhat obscure in meaning as well as uncertain in 
orthography. He gives minute particulars of the means he employed 
to inflame the Indians. This is a speech he made at one of their 
councils: 

"My brothers, I announce to you on the part of your fathers 
that if you do not hasten to see him this year, you will make him 
think that you are not his children and he will be angry. 

"He has a long arm and very large hands. 

"He is good, he has a good heart when his children heed him. 

"He is bad, h^ is terrible, he sits in judgment on all the Indians 
and French." 

Though none of the incidents of the George Rogers Clark 
expedition occurred on Wisconsin soil, they played a large part in 
determining Wisconsin's future. As a result of this expedition, Wis- 
consin is to-day under the stars and stripes instead of the banner oC 
St. George. When the Revolutionary war began all the Western 
forts were garrisoned by British soldiers. Clark formed the daring 
plan of capturing them by surprise, and succeeded in enlisting the 
cooperation of Patrick Henry, governor of Virginia. With a small 
force of frontiersmen, 153 men in all, he marched into the Illi- 
nois country, captured Kaskaskia and Cahokia without firing a shot 
and then secured possession of Vincennes. His force was so small 
that he could spare but two men to hold the latter post. Gen. Ham- 
ilton marched from Detroit to recapture it, with his British soldiers 
and an Indian rabble partly recruited from Wisconsin. Not know- 
ing how numerous — or, rather, how few — the Americans were, Gen. 
Hamilton besieged the fort with his force of thirty regulars, fifty 
volunteers and 400 Indians, and demanded its surrender. The two 



128 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

plucky Americans sent back the defiant answer that they would sur- 
render if permitted to march out with the honors of war, otherwise 
they would defy the British to take the fort. Gen. Hamilton 
accepted the proposal and was astonished beyond measure when the 
entire garrison of two men marched out dY the fort. 

George Rogers Clark, when he learned that the British had 
recaptured Vincennes, determined on another bold stroke. The 
march of his handful of Long Knives, without provisions and with 
little ammunition, through an inundated stretch miles in extent, 
where they had to wade sometimes up to their necks in water, in 
weather so cold that their clothes froze as solid as coats of mail, is 
one of the most heroic episodes in the annals of American history, 
Clark had with him less than 200 men to undertake the capture of a 
well provisioned and equipped fort, supplied with artillery and 
defended by 500 soldiers and Indian warriors. Their march across the 
country, a distance of 175 miles, was attended with such hardships 
that it seemed as if human endurance could not meet the test. Clark 
detailed twenty-five picked men to shoot down those who would 
refuse to march. He also inspired the men by various expedients, 
such as having them join in singing patriotic songs. A journal of the 
journey has been preserved, from which a few extracts taken at 
random will indicate the nature of their laborious march through 
the inundated district: 

"Rain all this day— no provisions." 

"One of the men killed a deer, which was brought into camp. Very accept- 
able." 

"Marched on in the waters. Heard the evening and morning guns from the 
fort. No provisions yet. Lord help us!" 

"Plunged into the waters sometimes to the neck, for more than one league, 
when we stopped on the next hill of the same name (Momib), there being no 
dry land on any side for many leagues." 

"Many of the men much cast down, particularly the volunteers. No pro- 
visions of any sort, now two days. Hard fortune!" 

"Camp very quiet, but hungry — some aln^ost in despair." 

A story has been preserved by the members of Clark's family 
that well illustrates his fertility of resource when occasion 
demanded. The men had halted where the land was comparatively 
dry; they were hungry, cold and tired and they hesitated to plunge 
into the chill water. Among them was a sergeant whose six feet 
two inches of height contrasted strikingly with that of a diminu- 
tive drummer boy who had accompanied the men from Kaskaskia. 
Both were great favorites with the men. Knowing this, Clark 
"mounted the little drummer on the shoulders of the stalwart ser- 
geant and gave orders to him to advance into the half frozen water. 
He did so, the little drummer beating the charge from his lofiy 
perch, while Clark, with sword in hand followed them, giving the 
command forward march! as he threw aside the floating ice. Elated 
and amuse'd with the scene, the men promptly obeyed, holding their 



The Story of the State. 



129 



rifles above their heads and, iu spite of all obstacles, reached the 
high land beyond them safely." 

The narrative of the final capture of the fort and the uncondi- 
tional surrender of Gen. Hamilton is a stirring chapter — Clark's 
strategem of marching and countermarching his men around hills 
several times so as to give an exaggerated idea of the size of his 
command; his night attack on the fort; the flag of truce, and the 
order of Clark that Hamilton surrender or "depend on such treat- 
ment as is justly due a murderer"; flnally the unconditional sur- 
render of the garrison. 




The Little Drummer Boy and the Big Sergeant. 

(An Episode of the George Rogers Clark Campaign. Reproduced from English's 
"Conquest of the Northwest." 



Thus was conquered the Northwest. When the treaty of peace 
was signed that insured independence to the American colonies, 
Great Britain did not want to yield that part of North America now 
comprising Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, but the 
shrewd diplomacy of Benjamin Franklin, John Jay and John Adams 
— the American commissioners — in demonstrating that Clark's con- 
quest had placed their country in military possession of the region, 
prevailed, and Great Britain had to yield its claim. 

The notable exploit of George Rogers Clark created consterna- 
tion even in the remote forests of Wisconsin. At Prairie du Chien 



130 LeaduKj Ecciits of Wisconsin Histurtj. 

a great quantity of fur had been stored in the old French fort. It 
was feared that the Big Knives had intentions of making a raid on 
these valuable stores. Langlade, who represented British interests 
at Green Bay, engaged to guard them. In the summer of 1780 lie 
was joined by an English trader from Michilimackinac, named John 
Long, who was accompanied by twenty Canadians and a large force 
of Indians. Long has left a journal narrating the incidents of his 
trip. 

"We arrived at Prairie du Ohien," he wrote, "where we found 
the merchants' peltry, in packs, in a long house, guarded by Captain 
Langlade and some Indians, who were rejoiced to see us. After rest- 
ing some time, we took out about 300 packs of the best skins and 
filled the canoes. Sixty more, which remained, we burned to pre- 
vent the enemy from taking them, having ourselves no room to stow 
any more, and proceeded on our journey back to Michilimackinac. 
About five days after our departure, we were informed that the 
Americans came to attack us, but to their extreme mortification we 
were out of their reach." 

Although not so stated by Long in his narrative, local tradition 
has it that the sixty packs of furs which he could not take along in 
his nine birch bark canoes were destroyed by setting fire to the old 
French fOrt wherein they had been stored. 

The year before the destruction of the old French fort at Prairie 
du Chien Gautier led a company of Wisconsin Indians against a 
trading post in Illinois called Le Pe, located where the city of Peoria 
has since Ueen built. The British commander at Michilimackinac 
feared that the Long Knives of George Rogers Clark would take and 
fortify this station, and at his instance Gautier led his warriors on 
a raid. The Indians applied the torch and then made their way 
back to Wisconsin without further attempts at molesting the Amer- 
icans. 

Another band of Indians from several Wisconsin tribes — Chlp- 
pewas, Sacs, Foxes, Menomonees and Winnebagoes — was led by a 
trio of French traders on a raid down the Mississippi river. Spain 
had declared war against Great Britain (1780) and these Indians 
were sent to attack some of the Spanish settlements on the west 
side of the river. Although the party numbered several hundred, 
nothing was accomplished beyond capturing an American boat filled 
with provisions and scalping a few settlers in the neighborhood of 
St. Louis. 

During the period of the Revolutionary war, the British had a 
number of vessels plying on the great lakes. One of them was 
actively engaged in cruising part of the time along the Wisconsin 
side of Lake Michigan, as appears from the log of her captain. This 
collection of papers is now in the British Museum, labeled "Remarks 
on Board Her Majesty's Sloop Felicity by Samuel Roberts on Pilot- 
ing Her on Lake Michigan." Like most mariners of Kis day. Cap- 



The Story of the State. 



131 



tain Roberts was not an expert speller, but he faithfully jotted down 
the events of each day as best he could. His mission seems to have 
been dual — to trade for corn and to strengthen the allegiance of the 
natives to the British cause. One entry in his log, showing that 
there was at that time a trader named Morong (probably incorrect 
spelling) at Milwaukee reads thus, in part: 

"Remarks on Thursday, 4 Nov., 1779 — At 2 this afternoon Mr. 
Gautly returned with 3 indeans and a french man who lives at Mill- 
wakey, nam'd Morong nephew to Monsier St. Pier; Mr. Gautley gives 
them a present of 3 bottles of Rum & half carrot of tobacco, and 
also told them the manner governor Sinclair could wish them to Be- 
have, at which they seemed weall satisfeyed, he also give instruc- 




LANGLADE'S WISCONSIN INDIANS AFTER BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 
AFTER A SKETCH IN BLACK'S "OHIO." 

(The painted warriors whom Langlade had recruited in Wisconsin and Mich- 
igan secured hundreds of scalps to carry back to their lodges, after the half of 
Braddock's army had been mowed down by their ambuscade. The corpses were 
despoiled, and the Indians "ironically decked themselves out in grenadier caps, 
laced coats and epaulettes.") 

tions to Monsieur St. Pier to deliver some strings of Wampum and 
a little Keg of rum to the following & a carrot of Tobacco in gov- 
ernor Sinclairs name; likewise the manour how to behave; he also 
gave another small Kegg with some strings of Wampum with a car- 
rot of Tobaco to Deliver the indeans at Millwakey which is a mixed 
Tribe of different nations." 

The day before this liberal presentation of rum and tobacco. 
Captain Roberts made this entry in the sloop's log: "We sett the 
main sail & stood in shoar we just fetched in to Millwakey Bay; at 
8 A. M. a very strong gale; we cam too in 4 fathoms watter; hoist 
out the Boat; sent Mr. Guntley & 4 hands on shoer with difficulty. 
Nothing more this 24 hours." 



CHAPTER X. 

THE MAGNA CHARTA OF THE NORTHWEST. 

Much difficulty was experienced by the American commissioners 
in securing recognition of tlieir claim to the Northwest, at the close 
of the Revolutionary war. The boundaries proposed by the court of 
France in 1782 would have given Wisconsin, as well as the rest of 
the territory north of the Ohio, to the English. One northern bound- 
ary that the American representatives would have been willing to 
compromise on would have given to the English one-half the pres- 
ent states of Wisconsin and Michigan. Geographical knowledge of 
this region was then very meager, and little was known of its 
resources. It was fortunate that the British ministers declined this 
proposition and chose instead the water boundary that now divides 
Canada from the United States. 

Following the definitive treaty that gave the Northwest to the 
United States there resulted a scramble among the original colonies 
ior the possession of this imperial domain. Virginia, Massachu- 
setts, Connecticut and New York claimed it in whole or in part, on 
the strength of royal charters. In the case of Virginia, the conquest 
of George Rogers Clark was used as an argument to fortify the 
claim. Finally, all the claimants ceded their real or alleged claims 
to the government, and the Northwest Territory was created by act 
of congress. 

Next to the declaration of independence, the Ordinance of 1787 is 
the most important document connected with the history of the 
United States. This organic act for the government of the North- 
west contained the germs of that which is purest and best and most 
beneficent in national legislation. Wisconsin was destined not to 
experience the full measure of this legislation until well along in the 
following century, but the salient features of the Ordinance of 178T 
are the essence to-day of what is strongest in its government. Many 
of the provisions contained in this remarkable document were then 
novel, and it is the greater evidence of broad statesmanship that 
their incorporation in the act was secured despite the narrow preju- 
dices of the times. Thomas Jefferson, Manassah Cutler and Nathan 
Dane h'ad potent influence in the framing of the document. Some of 
the provisions were these: 

Public Schools — "Schools and the means of education shall for- 
ever be encouraged." 

Freedom — "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servi- 
tude in the said territory." 

Union Forever — "The said territory and the states which may be 
formed therein shall forever remain a part of this confederacy of 
the United States of America." 



The Story of the State. 



133 



It was also provided that good faith should be observed toward 
the Indians; that no person should be molested on account of his 
mode of worship or religious sentiments, and the ordinance also 
guaranteed to the inhabitants the writ of habeas corpus, trial by 
jury, proportional representation in the legislature, and the privi- 
leges of the common law. 

This was the basic law for the Northwest Territory — an area 
destined to become the very heart of the nation. Three thousand 
miles of navigable waters give form to this great region, and within 
the great lakes is stored "nearly one-half of the fresh water of the 
globe." 

In the carving of five great states out of this public domain of 
266,000 square miles there is material for a chapter in which Wis- 
consin figures prominently. 




The Attempt to Carve the Northwest. 

Map Showing the Claims on Wisconsin and Other Northwestern Territory Made 
by Some of the Original Colonies. 





Ruins of Historic Fort Crawford. 
Prom a Photograph. 




PART IV. 



PIONEER DAYS IN THE TERRITORY. 




Gov. Henry Dodge as He Appeared in 1S36. 
From an Oil Painting by Bowman. 



CHAPTER I. 

FIRST SETTLEMENTS. 

In ATX Wisconsin, previous to the year 1800, tihere were not to 
exceed 200 white persons; but years before there had been planted 
the germs whence have sprung some of her cities. What constitutes 
the beginning of a permanent settlement is perhaps difficult of defi- 
nition; controversies as to who were the first permanent settlers 
of certain towns prove that disagreements may arise relative to this 
proposition, with arguments to fortify the contention of either dis- 
putant. It is so with many cFties that have developed in Wisconsin. 
Assuming, however, that the term permanent settler may be applied 
to the pioneers who made their habitations in certain localities with 
no known intention of removing thence, the first permanent settle- 
ments of Wisconsin may be enumerated as follows, the list em- 
bracing all in existence previous to the ushering in of the nine- 
teenth century: 

Green Bay — Augustin Langlade and his son Charles, with their 
families, 1764. 

Prairie du Chien — Bazil Giard, Augustin Ange and Pierre An- 
taya, 1781. 

Milwaukee — Jean Baptiste Mirandeau, 1789; Jacques Vieau, 1795. 

Portage — Laurent Barth, 1793; Jean Ecuyer, 1798. 

Kaukauna — Dominick Ducharme, 1790. 

Though not the first persons to erect habitations at these three 
places they were the first whose purpose was to remain. Traders 
had made these important stations their transient abode years 
before, but with the migratory instincts of their kind, had tarried 
but a brief period. Elsewhere, too, commercial rovers had erected a 
rude shelter, but they left before any vestige of permanency had 
attached to the spots chosen for their barter stations. They cannot 
therefore be counted among the first settlers of Wisconsin. Even 
their names are now forgotten. A Frenchman had established a 
trading post where Sheboygan now is, about 1779, or possibly earlier. 
At La Pointe there had been a succession of forest merchants, 
among them such famous travelers as Pierre Radisson (1658) ; Alex- 
ander Henry (1765); Michael Cadotte (1800). The huts of none of 
these men became the nucleus of a permanent settlement. 

Oldest of Wisconsin's settlements, Green Bay, has a history dat- 
ing back more than two centuries and a half. For a hundred and 
fifty years, the history of Green Bay may be said to have been the 

137 



138 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

history of Wisconsin. Tears before the Langlades concluded to 
make this gateway their home, these famous French partisans had 
frequently propelled their birch-bark canoes between this place and 
Michilimackinac. It is difficult to determine just when they con- 
cluded to establish themselves here permanently; the year 1764 is 
probably the correct date. The village grew but slowly; by the year 
1785 there were but seven families here, comprising fifty-six persons, 
and this number included their Pawnee slaves. It appears that 
these slaves were treated rather as servants than in the degraded 
sense that the term slave would imply. 

A record of the first enumeration of the inhabitants of Green 
Bay has been preserved. The seven families included Charles Lan- 
glade, his wife, two Pawnee slaves and three domestics; one Lagral 
and his wife; Jean Baptiste Brunet, his wife, three children and a 
domestic; Amable Roy, his wife, two Pawnee slaves, a domestic and 
Jean Baptiste Le Due, an old trader who lived with them; Joseph 
Roy, his wife, five children and a domestic; a young man named 
Marchand, agent of a trading company of Michilimackinac, and four 
domestics. The houses occupied by Langlade, Grignon, Amble Roy 
and Marchand were located on the east bank of the Fox, and across 
the river were those of Joseph Roy, Lagral and Brunet. 

Nearly a quarter of a century elapsed before the census of Green 
Bay counted 250 persons. 

It is known that Prairie du Chien was regarded as a gathering 
place for the Indians of many tribes long previous to the planting 
of a village there. Located at the mouth of the great Wisconsin 
river highway, which, with the Pox, constituted the much frequented 
route that bisected the state, it was the naturally-located mart where 
the tribesmen of Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin could 
exchange their commodities. The early traders noted its advantage- 
ous position, and, as at Green Bay, erected a fort. The first forts 
were all built at trading centers; they were designed less as military 
strongholds than as stations for the trade in peltries. 

The chronicles of Prairie du Chien credit a Frenchman named 
Jean Marie Cardinelle and his wife with having made their home 
there for a time, as early as 1726. Mrs. Cardinelle survived her hus- 
band and half a dozen more later husbands, if tradition errs not. 
She lived to the good old age of 130 years, and was doubtless a 
widow oftener than any other woman who at any time made Wis- 
consin her home. In her old age the widow of Cardinelle grew 
garrulous, and loved to tell of her early experiences. She related 
that when she arrived at Prairie du Chien with her husband and an 
Indian slave (whom she subsequently married), "the buffalo were 
so numerous as sometimes to impede the progress of the three 
adventurers in their frail bark vessel, and they had to wait for the 
vast horde to cross the river before their canoe could pass in safety." 



The Story of the State. 139 

Dr. Brunson, a local historian of Prairie du Chien, was inclined 
to doubt the accuracy of the date given by the Cardinelles as the 
year of their arrival, and he believed that the relict of many spouses 
was not as ancient as she believed herself. Dr. Brunson thought 
that the advent of the Cardinelles could not well have taken place 
earlier than 1767, and possibly even some years later. 

When the English traveler Carver visited Prairie du Chien in 
1766, he found no white man there. At any rate his narrative men- 
tions none. The permanent settlement of Prairie du Chien is usually 
reckoned from the year 1781, and land titles date from this period. 
During this year a trio of Frenchmen came to the confluence of the 
Wisconsin with the Mississippi river and began what developed into 
a settlement. Their names were Bazil Giard, Augustin Ange and 
Pierre Antaya. Giard died at Prairie du Chien about 1819, at about 
70 years of age, and left a large family. Antaya was also survived 
by a large family, most of them girls. Ange left the settlement in 
1825 for the upper Mississippi. 

The beginnings of Portage were humble; they resulted from the 
necessities of travelers who used the Fox-Wisconsin route. This 
was the great highway across the state. The carry across the mile 
and a half of marshy stretch dividing the two streams suggested to 
Lawrence Barth, a trapper, the idea of furnishing transportation 
facilities for the boats of the voyagers. A horse and a vehicle for 
carrying these effects enabled him to do considerable business at the 
portage. Three years later there came to the portage another French- 
man, with improved facilities, and became Earth's competitor. Hav- 
ing diplomatically married a Winnebago woman whose tribe made 
this spot their home, the new transportation agent, Jean Ecuyer, 
was able to divert most of Earth's business. He flourished for a 
time, and others then entered the fleld. The transportation of 
traders' boats continued to be the chief business at the portage for 
noarly a quarter of a century. Pierre Paquette, who made the Port- 
age his headquarters for many years, was one of the best-known 
scouts and traders of the Northwest. Little is known of his early 
career. He flrst appeared ait the Portage when John Jacob Astor 
secured control of the Southwest company and merged it with the 
American Fur company. Paquette's services as Indian interpreter 
were frequently sought. He was the official interpreter at the mak- 
ing of treaties at Green Bay, in 1828, at Prairie du Chien in 1825 
and Rock Island in 1835. He had the confldence of the Indians in 
unbounded degree; to them his advice was law. 

Marvelous stories are told of Paquette's remarkable feats of 
strength. "He was the strongest man I ever knew," Henry Mer- 
rill of Portage said of him. "He would pick up a barrel of pork as 
easily as another man would a ten-gallon keg. I had a cask of dry 
white lead at my door, with 800 pounds of lead in it, and I was told 



140 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

by my clerk that he took it by the chimes and lifted it off the floor.'" 
B. L. Webb tells of this incident witnessed by him: A boat had 
arrived at Webb's warehouse, laden with sacks of wheat containing 
three bushels each. In transferring the grain to the warehouse, two 
men would take a sack, give it a swing and toss it to the floor, which 
was a little above their heads. Paquette witnessed the unloading 
for awhile, then stepped forward, seized a sack in each hand and 
tossed them to the floor without apparent exertion. Such athletic 
feats caused Paquette to become known as the "Modern Samson." 

Long after Green Bay and Prairie du Chien had become budding 
villages, Milwaukee had scarcely attained to the dignity of a ham- 
let. Jean Baptiste Mirandeau, who is credited with having been the 
first man who built a house here with the intention of remaining, 
was a blacksmith. He lived here a quarter of a century, and was 
buried near the intersection of Wisconsin street and Broadway. It 
must be admitted that the proof of the date of his coming is not 
wholly satisfactory. 

Jacques Vieau built a trading post of two substantial log houses 
on the south bank of the Menomonee river, a mile and a half from 
the bay. Several of his children were born here, among them 
Joseph, Louis, Amable, Charles, Nicholas and Peter. The latter Is 
still living, his home being at. Mukwonago. The elder Vieau became 
the father-in-law of Solomon Juneau, whom the old settlers of Mil- 
waukee like to mention as Milwaukee's first settler. Juneau was 
Vieau's clerk, and wooed and won his employer's attractive daugh- 
ter, Josette. It was as Vieau's clerk that he came to Milwaukee in 
1818. He was the first land-owner here, for the others exercised 
squatter sovereignty merely. This fact has probably had some 
influence in crediting Juneau with having been Milwaukee's first per- 
manent setttler. 



CHAPTER II. 

VILLAGE LIFE A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 

The genesis of Wisconsin's villages was Frencli. When the 
British were in military control, the settlements remained French. 
The close of the Revolutionary war did not disturb French charac- 
teristics. 

The Jay treaty of 1794, which stipulated that the British should 
absolutely surrender the Old Northwest to the Americans, made no 
difference in this remote region. There was, indeed, no appreciable 
change till after the war of 1812. The Americans were nominally in 
control, but French methods still prevailed. The French were easy- 
going at best, and the patriarchal rule that governed their com- 
munities tended to retard growth. The habitant, as he was called, 
was not over-thrifty nor over-industrious; he loved amusement, and 
as long as he could fill his stomach comfortably was averse to work 
more than was absolutely necessary. The French habitant was the 
opposite of the Anglo-Saxon pioneer who supplanted him. 

Love of social intercourse led these first settlers to build their 
cabins in close proximity to each other, along the river banks. As 
they patterned after the beaver and muskrat in locating their hum- 
ble structures of logs almost in the water, they derived the sobriquet 
of "muskrat Frenchmen," when the Americans came among them. 
The conveniences of the village community life were of the most 
primitive nature, but the careless, easy-going people managed to 
live contentedly and to enjoy themselves. The caleche or pony cart 
served in summer and the wooden cari'y-all, fancifully adorned, was 
used in winter as a vehicle. Buffalo robes served for seats, and the 
pleasure drives were enjoyed despite the jogging over the rough 
roads in springless vehicles. 

Tlie winter was the season for gaiety and merry-making. There 
were parties and dances, races on the ice and other diversions. The 
young men and young women were resourceful in devising means 
for passing the long months pleasantly. 

Agricultural pursuits were conducted on the rudest plan imag- 
inable. The old French plough was made of wood, except the share. 
The harness was of twisted raw-hide, and in place of the yoke famil- 
iar in Yankeeland, a rope was attached to the horns of the oxen. 
In most of the French villages of the Northwest, a hundred years 
ago, there was a "common field," used by all, and this enclosure was 
used for the benefit of all. 

"In this field, which sometimes contained several hundred 
acres," says a chronicle of the times, "each villager and head of a 
family had assigned to him a certain portion of ground for the use 

141 



142 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

of himself and family, as a field and garden. The extent of the field 
was proportionate to the number of persons or families in the vil- 
lage. The subdivisions were in due proportion to the number of 
members in each family. Each individual, or family, labored and 
reaped the product of his own allotment for his own use. If the 
enclosure became ruinous or was neglected contiguous to the plat of 
any family or individual, so as to endanger the general interest, 
that individual or family forfeited their claim to the use of the com- 
mon field." 

The use of this common garden field was regulated by a series of 
cast iron rules. They seemed to work satisfactorily, despite their 
in many respects arbitrary nature. "The season for ploughing, 
planting, reaping and other agricultural operations in the common 
field was regulated by special enactments. Even the form and man- 
ner of door yards, gardens and stable yards, and other arrangements 
for mutual benefit and the convenience of all, were regulated by 
special enactments of the little village senate. Nothing was better 
calculated to improve the simple and benevolent feelings of unso- 
phisticated human nature, to maintain the blessings of peace and 
harmony and the prevalence of brotherly love, than the forms of 
life and the domestic usages which prevailed in these early villages." 

Doubtless agriculture flourished little in Wisconsin a hundred 
years ago, because there was too much reliance upon the proceeds 
of the fur trade as a means of livelihood. This had as much influ- 
ence as the blighting paternalistic methods governing the pursuits of 
husbandry. 

Intricacies of court machinery had no part in the dispensing of 
justice — or dispensing with justice, either — at Green Bay or Prairie 
du Chien. A pompous old gentleman who drifted into the former 
community about 1792 exercised the functions of judge at the Bay. 
Whence Judge Charles Reaume derived his authority no one stopped 
to question. His rulings had all the force of a decision of the Su- 
preme court, and the simple villagers respected them as the law 
expounded by the court of last resort. Judge Reaume was an orig- 
inal character, and numberless are the stories that have survived 
about his judicial eccentricities. He had never heard of Blackstone. 
He governed as did the wise old patriarchs of old. On one occasion 
two Frenchmen who had quarreled about a trivial matter came to 
Judge Reaume with their grievances. He heard what each had to 
say and with the dignity due to the solemnity of the occasion, rend- 
ered his decision: 

"You are both wrong," he said. "You," pointing his index finger 
at the plaintiff, "you bring me one load of hay; and you," as the 
digit wandered in the direction of the defendant, "you bring me one 
load of wood. The case is settled." 

The man who dispensed justice at Prairie du Chien was known 
as Col. Boilvin, and was built after a similar pattern. It was sus- 



The Story of the State. 



143 



pected, but not positively known, that lie actually possessed a vol- 
ume of statutes. If he did, he never referred to the book. The kind 
of law dispensed by the bibulously-inclined justice may be gathered 
from the following incident: 

A man named Fry was under suspicion of having stolen a calf. 
Col. Boilvin determined to uphold the dignity of the law and dis- 
patched his constable to arrest the suspect. He soon returned. 

"Here, sir," said the constable. "I have brought Fry to you, 
as you ordered." 




AUGUSTIN GRIGNON. 

From an Oil Painting in the Rooms of the State Historical Society at Madison. 
(Grignon was a grandson of the famous French partisan, Charles Langlade, 
and was a native of Green Bay. In the old fur-trading days he furnished the 
conveyances required by the boatmen in making the portage at the Kakalin 
rapids, on the Fox River. Grignon was the author of what is doubtless the most 
interesting and valuable of the early pioneer narratives. He dictated the recital 
to the late Lyman C. Draper, and it was published in Vol. 3 of the "Wisconsin 
Historical Collections.") 



The colonel gazed sternly at the man suspected of being the 
offender. 

"Fry, you great rascal!" quoth he. "What for you steal the 
calf?" 

"I didn't steal the calf," retorted the accused. 

"You lie, you great rascal!" shouted the justice as he shook his 
fist at the prisoner. "Take him to jail," as he waved his hand to 
indicate that the culprit was convicted beyond the shadow of a 
doubt. Then he turned to some boon companions who had wit 
nessed the trial, and remarked: "Come, gentlemen, come, let us 
take a leetle something." 



CHAPTER III. 

THE CAPTURE OF PRAIRIE DU CHIEN. 

Runners from the Ohio country came among the Wisconsin 
Indians when Tecumseh planned his great uprising. No difficulty 
was experienced in exciting them to hostility against the American 
I>ong Knives. One Menomonee chief, Tomah, refused to join the 
revolt. An incident Is related by James Biddle, a Pennsylvanian 
who was in Green Bay at this time, illustrating the character of this 
famous Indian. According to his narrative, Tecumseh came about 
1811 to a council of the Menomonees, and in an impassioned speech 
sought to fire his hearers with his own ardor for war. He told of 
the many enemies he had slain whose scalps had adorned is belt, 
of the battles he had fought and the prowess he had shown. 
When the Shawanoe chieftain had ceased, Tomah arose by the coun- 
cil fire. With quiet dignity he referred to the words of Tecumseh 
and his boast of many enemies slain by his hands; he paused, and 
with great dramatic effect he said in a tone of intense pride: 

"But it is my boast that these hands are unsullied by human 
blood!" 

The incident narrated may not be based on fact, but the spirit 
of Tomah's reply certainly actuated this well-known chief, for he 
was successful for a time in preventing his braves from going on 
the war path. British intrigue, fortified by British rum, proved more 
potent later, and again the Indians of Wisconsin ranged themselves 
on the side of the British and against the Americans. In the bloody 
battle at the river Raisin, the ferocity of Wisconsin Indians mada 
that memorable massacre a name of horror along the frontier. At 
Tippecanoe, Wisconsin Indians shared in the defeat of the great 
Indian chieftain. 

Some time after the war of 1812 began, it became evident to th-? 
Americans that Prairie du Chien was an Important place to hold if 
the British allies were to be prevented from descending the Mis- 
sissippi and raiding the American settlements. Accordingly a force 
under Lieut. James Perkins was dispatched to hold the fort. They 
went slowly up the river in a gunboat that had been made bullet- 
proof, the force comprising about a hundred and fifty men, well- 
equipped with ammunition and a number of cannon. Their arrival 
surprised the inhabitants at the Dog's Prairie, as the British called 
the place. British agents had made the place their headquarters and 
had boasted that the Big Knives would not dare venture to this post 
on the upper Mississippi. One Robert Dickson, a red-haired Scot 
who was especially zealous in heralding Britsh supremacy, fled as 
the Americans approached, and carried the news to the command- 
ing officer at Michilimackinac. 

144 



The Story of the State. 145 

There were some American sympathizers at the Prairie who 
heartily welcomed Lieut. Perkins and his men. Two of them issued 
an address urging the iuhabitans to show their friendship for the 
Americans. The report made by Dicltson was that they had issued 
"two flaming Epistles to the people of the prairie, exhorting them to 
claim the protection of the great republic before it is too late & a 
great deal of other stuff." 

The Americans lost no time in erecting suitable fortifications in 
anticipation of an attack. A commanding eminence was selected,, 
and soon the American flag floated in Wisconsin for the first time in 
its history. The stockade was named Fort Shelby, in honor of Ken- 
tucky's first governor, Isaac Shelby. It was afterwards charged by 
the British that the Americans were guilty of gross treachery 
towards a party of Winnebagoes on taking possession of Prairie du 
Chien. According to their account seven Indians of this tribe were 
wantonly butchered while eating a meal set before them by their 
captors. Afterward they cajoled four others within a log house and 
shot them through the openings between the logs. 

Fort Shelby was placed in good condition for defense and for 
additional security the gunboat was anchored in midstream just in 
front of the fort, the ominous iron throats of a half dozen cannon 
being visible from shore. 

The British prepared for effective measures when Dickson, the 
trader, brought them word of the American occupation of Prairie 
du Ohien. While he went among his Indian friends to raise a 
large force, companies of regulars and volunteers were being drilled 
at Michilimackinac and Green Bay for an attack on Fort Shelby. 
Lieut. Col. W. McKay was placed at their head. Dickson possessed 
unbounded influence over the Indians. He had married a sister of 
Red Thunder, a Dakota chief, and had on numerous occasions given 
the Indians great quantities of traders' supplies and provisions and 
thus won their friendship. The name of Red Head, as they termed 
him, was familiar from Lake Michigan to the headwaters of the 
Mississippi river. . He found no difficulty in raising a large force of 
warriors, and wintered at Garlic island, pending the arrival of 
McKay's force. 

With a parting British cheer, the boats containing the attacking 
expedition left Michilimackinac June 28, 1814, and soon reached 
Green Bay. The party that pulled up the Fox in bateaux comprised 
several companies of Canadian volunteers and one of regulars. The 
company of volunteers from Green Bay was made up of the follow- 
ing men: 

Sergeant — Laurent Filey. 

Corporal — Amable Grignon. 

Privates — Joseph Courvalle, Labonne Dorion, Alexis Crochier, Josepli 
Deneau, Narcisse Delaune, Pierre Chalifou, Jean B. Latouch, Pierre L'Allement, 
Etienne Bantiere, Francis Freniere, Pierre Grignon, Jr., Pierre Ochu. 



146 



Leading Events of Wisconsin Histori/. 



Joseph Rolette, a well-known trader from Prairie du Ghien, and 
Thomas G. Anderson accompanied the expedition in command of 
the volunteers. At the Portage, Dickson's painted rabble of five or 




Lewis Cass. 



(One of the heroic figures in the early territorial history of Wisconsin was 
Lewis Cass. Some of the most important Indian treaties, at Prairie du Chien, 
Green Bay and elsewhere, were negotiated by him. In 1820 he undertook an 
important expedition through Wisconsin to ascertain its resources. He was 
accompanied by Henry R. Schoolcraft, who wrote an interesting account of the 
journey and its results. The canoe trip Governor Cass made to St. Louis and 
back, to obtain military assistance when Wisconsin was threatened with the 
horrors of a general Indian outbreak, was a memorable one. He traveled 1,800 
miles with great celerity, and his promptness undoubtedly prevented the war 
from assuming great proportions. Governor Cass, while minister to France, 
obtained copies of manuscripts which have done much to illuminate the history 
of Wisconsin and the Northwest during the French period.) 

six hundred Indians joined the Michigan Fencibles and Mississippi 
Volunteers, as the companies were called. The Indians were much 
impressed with the appearance of a brass six-pounder whose mouth 



The Story of the State. 147 

yawned from the prow of one of the bateaux. A bombardier of the 
Royal artillery was in charge. 

It was a pleasant Sunday morning at about 10 o'clock (July 17) 
when the red coats of the regulars, the gaudy tasseled caps of the 
Canadians and the paint-bedaubed savage stragglers were espied 
from the fort. There was great commotion, for their appearance 
was unexpected. The officers of the garrison were about to depart 
on a pleasure drive, and the villagers were engaged in their cus- 
tomary peaceful avocations. Some of these latter made haste to seek 
shelter in the fort, while others fled for the country. Having pitched 
camp, the British prepared for sterner business. Capt. Thomas An- 
derson advanced toward the blockhouses, waving a flag of truce. He 
stopped in front of the strong oaken pickets, ten feet high, which 
enclosed the fort, and delivered the following message from Lieut.- 
Col. McKay, addressed to Lieut. Perkins: 

"Sir — An hour after the receipt of this, surrender to His 
Majesty's forces unconditionally, otherwise I order you to defend 
yourself to the last man. The humanity of a British olficer obliges 
me (in case you should be obstinate) to request you will send out 
of the way your women and children." 

The American commander was equal to the occasion. Without 
hesitation he sent back this curt reply: 

"Sir — I received your polite note and prefer the latter, and am 
determined to defend to the last man." 

The defiant answer was the signal for the commencement of 
hostilities. The brass six pounder was trained on the American gun- 
boat in the river, while the Indians and the Michigan Fencibles 
opened a brisk fire on the fort. Sheltered by the buildings of the 
village, the savages were able to annoy the garrison considerably, 
their shots cutting down the flag and wounding a couple of the men 
with bullets that sped through the port-holes. The firing from the 
fort did little damage. 

On the second day the bombardier again played his shot against 
the side of the gunboat. The garrison within the fort were filled 
with consternation when they observed the gunboat's cables were 
cut and that the boat was rapidly drifting away. It finally dis- 
appeared behind an island, with a flotilla of canoes filled with 
Indians in hot pursuit. The pursuers were joined by some of the 
Canadians and gave chase till the gunboat reached Rock Island, 
where reenforcements were met. The Americans, overestimating 
the force of the British, returned down stream and left Prairie du 
Chien and its garrison to take care of themselves. 

Had Lieut. Perkins realized in what straits the British were for 
ammunition, the desertion of the men on the gunboat would doubt- 
less not have discouraged him. The personal narrative of Capt. 
Anderson portrays the situation on the third day: 



148 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

"Our cannon shot were nearly all gone. So I got a quantity 
of lead from the village and with a couple of brick made a mould 
and cast a number of three-pound leaden balls. Meanwhile the 
Indians were bringing in balls which the Americans had by their 
short shots scattered about the prairie without effect. Our stores of 
provisions were getting low, our ammunition exhausted." 

Reduced to this strait, the British commander decided to send 
red-hot shot into the fort with a view of setting it on flre. The gun 
was mounted within a hundred and fifty feet of the oaken pickets, 
and the balls were heated in readiness to throw into the fort. At 
this juncture a white flag was displayed by the Americans, and the 
following message came: 

"Sir — I am willing to surrender the garrison provided you will 
save and protect the officers and men, and prevent the Indians from 
ill-treating them." 

Lieut.-Col. McKay feared that if he accepted unconditional sur- 
render his Indian allies would massacre the entire garrison. They 
had chafed over the delay and were eager to take scalps. Prompted 
by motives of humanity he sent back word that he would prefer 
to have the Americans remain in the fort till 8 o'clock the next 
morning, when he would allow them to march out with the honors 
of war. Despite the vehement protests of the Indian allies, the 
humane Briton gave back to the Americans their weapons and a 
supply of ammunition, and permitted them to depart for St. Louis. 
The savages looted the houses in the village, but secured no scalps. 
The casualties on both sides, as shown by the reports of Col. McKay, 
were ludicrously few considering the amount of bullets and powder 
that had been consumed. None of the British were killed, and but 
few of their red allies were wounded. In the attack on the gunboat 
five Americans lost their lives and ten were wounded. Three 
soldiers within the fort were hit by bullets, but there were no 
fatalities. 

Col. McKay did not remain long at the fort. He rechristened 
It Fort McKay in honor of himself, and a month later made his 
way back to Michilimackinac, leaving Capt. Anderson in command. 
Not long after Capt. A. H. Bulger, of the Royal Newfoundland 
regiment, was sent to take command. Capt. Bulger fared but ill. 
The Indians were clamoring for supplies, for the war had engaged 
their time to such an extent that they had raised no corn for food, 
and they were without ammunition for the chase. Starvation 
threatened them. 

"A vast concourse of Indians of different tribes were assembled 
at this place when I arrived, and it was really a most distressing 
sight; men, women and children naked and in a state of starvation," 
Capt. Bulger wrote to headquarters. "Many of them had been 
from home all the summer fighting for us, and now, on the 



The Story of the State. 14^ 

approach of winter, to see them suffering all the horrors of want, 
without the power to relieve them, was distressing in the extreme." 

Despite Capt. Bulger's urgent demand for provisions and gun- 
powder, these supplies came but grudgingly and in insufficient 
quantities, and the Indians grew daily more numerous and more 
clamorous. 

Other troubles beset Capt. Bulger. The erratic trader Dickson 
grew restless under the strict discipline enforced by the captain, 
and found means to annoy him in numerous ways. 

On the last day of the year (1814), a mutiny broke out among 
the Michigan Fencibles. Capt. Bulger had gone to Ft. McKay 
suffering from a wound in the breast, and the arduous trip in an 
open boat had greatly impaired his health. He had therefore dele- 
gated the drilling of men to subordinates. The Fencibles grew 
exceedingly disorderly, and when on parade took turns in laughing 
and swearing at the sergeant major. Capt. Bulger gave orders to 
confine the next man guilty of talking or laughing under arms. 

Soon matters came to a ciisis. One of the Fencibles paid no 
attention to commands and when he was about to be taken to the 
^uard house, resisted. His companions came to the rescue, and 
took the offender to the barrack room. 

"Who will dare come and take him?" they cried, and with 
drawn bayonets and knives stationed themselves at the door of the 
barrack room and swore to kill the first man making the attempt. 

Capt. Bulger acted with great promptness and decision. The 
long roll beat for the garrison to fall in, and the captain declared 
martial law and summoned a drum-head coUrt-martial. The 
offender was found guilty and sentenced to be tied to a gun and 
flogged. Other leaders of the mutiny were confined in a cell on 
bread and water. A garrison court-martial was assembled to try 
two men of the guard who had refused to arrest the culprit when 
ordered. The sentence of 300 lashes each was reduced by Capt. 
Bulger to half the number, the punishment being inflicted in 
presence of all the troops and militia. To guard against desertion, 
Capt. Bulger directed the Indians to bring in the head of the first 
man attempting to leave. 

Rumors of an expedition to recapture Fort McKay came from 
below, and as the garrison lacked both provisions and gun-powder, 
Capt. Bulger determined to go to Green Bay after some. The follow- 
ing proclamation which he issued to the traders and inhabitants of 
the settlement would indicate that the Creole population were 
strongly inclined to mix commercial thrift with patriotism. 

"To the Traders and Inhabitants of the Settlement of Green 
Bay: 

"You have now an opportunity of testifying to the world whether 
you are sincere in your professions of loyalty and attachment to 



150 Leading Events of ^Yisconsin History. 

his Majesty's government. I understand that there is still a con- 
siderable quantity of wheat, as well as ammunition, in this place, and 
I have heard that some of you intend to hoard up those articles in 
hopes of obtaining an exorbitant price for them. This is ungen- 
erous, ungrateful to that government which protects you. ... I 
do not like your charging 5 and 6 dollars a pound for your powder, 
it does not look well. Such an exorbitant demand will stagger the 
confidence of government, and will make it be believed that yea 
wish to impose and extort. I know that the powder did not cost you 
more than 2 dollars and a half at Mackinac and you ought to be 
satisfied to receive 4 dollars a pound for it," etc. 

By dint of persuasion and threats Capt. Bulger secured some 
supplies and returned to Fort McKay. News of the treaty of peace 
did not reach the garrison until May, 1815, although the articles had 
been signed at Ghent five months before (Dec. 24, 1814.) Five 
weeks before the intelligence reached him, Capt. Bulger was busy- 
ing himself with the task of keeping his Indian allies in line. On the 
18th of April a council was held. At this council many noted chiefs 
were present. Among those who declared undying hatred of the 
American Big Knives was Black Hawk, the Sac chieftain who 
seventeen years later led his band to destruction. The French 
called him L'Epervier Noir. Taking a war belt in his hand, he said: 

"My Father! You see this belt? When my great father at 
Quebec gave it to me, he told me to be friends with all his red 
children, to form but one body, to preserve our lands and to make 
war against the Big Knives who want to destroy us all. My Great 
Father said: 'Take courage, my children; hold tight your war club, 
and destroy the Big Knives as much as you can. If the master of 
life favors us. you shall again find your lands as they formerly 
were. Your lands shall again be green and the sky blue. When 
your lands change color, you shall also change.' This, my father, 
is the reason why we Sacs hold this war club tight in our hands, 
and will not let it go. 

"My Father! — I now see the time drawing nigh when we shall 
all change color; but, my father, our lands have not yet changed 
color. They are red — the water is red with our blood, and the sky 
is clouded. I have fought the Big Knives, and will continue to 
fight them till they are off our lands. Till then, my father, your 
red children cannot be happy." 

Doubtless the message conveying the news that peace had been 
declared proved welcome to Capt. Bulger, but it placed him in a try- 
ing position. Only a short time before he had used all his power to 
influence the Indians against the Big Knives. These had gone into 
the war on the promise that their lands which the Americans had 
taken were to be restored. Now Capt. Bulger was expected to instill 
pacific sentiments into the minds of the Indians, though their 



The Story of the State. 151 

demands remained unsatisfied. His orders were to give up tlie post 
to tlie American government, and he received a letter from Gov. 
Clark of Missouri, asking liim not to evacuate the fort until the 
arrival of the Americans. Capt. Bulger concluded, instead, to leave 
at once. According to his official report, "great ferment and dis- 
content existed among the Indians in consequence of the report of 
peace." He wrote to Gov. Clark at St. Louis that "the presence of a 
detachment of British and United States troops at the same time, 
at Fort McKay, would be the means of embroiling one party or the 
other in a fresh rupture with the Indians." 

It appears from subsequent correspondence that Capt. Bulger 
feared to prolong his stay lest he might hazard the lives of his men. 
The Indians were beginning to gather at the Prairie in great num- 
bers; the trader, Dickson, was intriguing to undermine the com- 
mander's authority. Capt. Graham, one of Capt. Bulger's officers, 
was so affected by Dickson's instigations as to speak disrespectfully 
to his superior officer. He was ordered into close arrest. The 
situation was extremely critical, for the Indians were angry and 
sullen. Every precaution against treachery was taken. When Capt. 
Bulger went to the council house outside of the fort to meet the 
Indian chiefs, he told the troops that he might never return; in that 
event they knew what he expected them to do. It was agreed that 
if treachery were attempted, the flag over the council house would 
be lowered. This was to be the signal for turning the guns of the 
fort upon the Indians. 

Fortunately, treachery was not attempted. The council was 
conducted with great solemnity. Seventy chiefs and warriors 
were gravely seated on the ground so as to form three sides of a 
hollow square. The wampun belt which in 1812 had summoned 
the tribes to war was placed on the ground where all could see it; 
then it had been red, denoting war; now it was blue, symbolic 
of peace. After the elaborate ceremonials, the interpreter read the 
treaty of peace, article by article. The British commander, on con- 
clusion of the reading, took a tastefully ornamented calumet, and 
after a few wreaths of smoke had curled upwards, passed it to an 
Indian chief. The peace pipe passed from hand to hand. The 
reverberation of nineteen guns fired from the fort to announce 
that the war had terminated came to the ears of the assembled 
chiefs. They accepted the signal, and the war was at an end. 

On the 24th of May, 1815, the union jack disappeared from the 
flagstaff of Fort McKay. Thus ended foreign domination on Wis- 
consin soil. For ninety years the fleur-de-lis of France was the 
emblem of sovereignty in Wisconsin; during the next half century 
British red-coats ruled the stockades at the extremes of its bound- 
aries. In the year of its semi-centennial, Wisconsin will have been 
American soil, nominally, 115 years; in fact, eighty-three years. 



CHAPTER IV. 

YANKEE FUR TRADERS IN WISCONSIN. 

Cj.ose upon the heels of the American soldiers who occupied the 
Wisconsin forts, upon conclusion of the war of 1812, came 
sagacious Yankee traders. Obstacles were encountered which even 
their keen instinct for driving a shrewd bargain was powerless 
to overcome. In 1816 Maj. Morgan's four companies of riflemen left 
St. Louis for the upper Mississippi, and in the month of June 
erected a fort where they found the ruins of Fort McKay. William 
H. Crawford was then secretary of the treasury in the cabinet of 
President Monroe, and his name was given to the cluster of block 
houses. In July Col. John Miller and his regiment of infantry 
arrived at Green Bay and built Fort Howard, so named in honor 
of Gen. Benjamin Howard. 

The occupation of these posts was designed to effect the 
expulsion of the British fur-traders, whose machinations among the 
Indian hunters had caused the young republic much trouble. The 
factors whom the government placed in charge were unable to com- 
pete with the British agents, whose goods were better and cheaper, 
and the government trading posts proved unprofitable. It was 
finally concluded to leave the fur trade to private enterprise. 

Chiefly through the influence of John Jacob Astor the govern- 
ment was induced to pass an act excluding foreigners from partici- 
pation in the fur trade. Astor had several years before this 
attempted to gain a foothold in the fur country, but British influ- 
ences were too strong. His celebrated Astoria expedition passed 
through Wisconsin in 1809, in charge of Hunt and Crooks. Astor 
controlled the Southwest company, which was merged with his 
American Fur company, headquarters being established at Mack- 
inaw. It was here that furs were received from Green Bay and 
Prairie du Chien and packed to New York. The former was the 
depot of the traders whose operations extended along the Fox 
and upper Wisconsin. Prairie du Chien was a still more important 
mart, being considered neutral territory by the Indians. Members 
of hostile tribes never harmed each other if they met here, though 
the truce terminated if they chanced upon each other beyond its 
limits. 

With all his sagacity, Astor found many difficulties in the 
prosecution of the fur trade. The British traders were unwilling 
to yield the rich fur country to the Americans, and evaded the 
inhibition against foreigners by taking out licenses in the names 
of American clerks employed by them. The Indian trade required 
guns and blankets of a good quality, then obtainable only in Eng- 

152 



The Story of the State. 153 

land. Astor was unable to get them and his inferior articles 
enabled the British traders to successfully inspire the Indians with 
contempt for the Americans and their goods. Astor's guns were 
made in Holland in imitation of those supplied by the British. It 
did not take the Indians long to ascertain their spurious character. 
The Indian is improvident, but he is keen enough at a bargain. 
The factor found his match when he tried to barter his com- 
modities for peltries. An anecdote told of Joseph Rolette, a famous 
trader of Prairie du Chien, well illustrates the point. A lady who 
visited Prairie du Chien in the early days of the territory remarked 
to him: 




Ebenezer Brigham. 

(During the Black Hawk war the Brigham place near Blue Mounds was a 
rendezvous for the settlers of the neighborhood. Ebenezer Brigham was the first 
permanent settler in Dane County. He came to Wisconsin seventy years ago; 
was a member of the Territorial Council from 1836 to 1841, and member of the 
Assembly the year Wisconsin became a State.) 

"Oh, Mr. Rolette, I would not be engaged in the Indian trade; 
it seeems to me a system of cheating the poor Indians." 

"Let me tell you, madame," replied he with great naivete, "it 
is not so easy to cheat the Indians as you imagine. I have tried 
it these twenty years, and have never succeeded." 

Necessity compelled the government to modify its orders re- 
ative to the exclusion of foreigners, licenses being issued to boat- 
men and interpreters who were able to fumiSh bonds for good 
behavior in the Indian country. Thus a large number of French 
Creoles entered the employ of the American Fur company. The fol- 
lov/ing spring (1817) the company brought to the fur country a 
larg3 number of American clerks, but more than half of them proved 
so inefficient that they were discharged at Mackinaw. 



154 Leading Events of Wisconsin Historij. 

The great depot of the Indian trade at this period was Macki- 
naw. It was from this place that outfits were sent as far west as 
the head waters of the Missouri river. For this trade, and that of 
the Mississippi, the boats went by way of the Fox and Wisconsin 
rivers. At little Kaukalin and at the famous Fox-Wisconsin portage 
the goods had to be transported by team, while the empty boats 
were taken up or down the rapids by the voyageurs. Augustin 
Griguon furnished the teams for this purpose at the former carry- 
ing place, and charged 20 cents per hundred pounds. At the Fox- 
Wisconsin portage, the charge was 40 cents per hundred pounds, and 
$10 for each boat. 

At Prairie du Chien a stop was' usually made for a season of 
convivial pleasure. It was an unwritten code of those old fur- 
trading days that on such occasions every trader must broach a 
keg of excellent wine. When the traders met here in the spring, 
they would feast right royally. They gave great dinner parties, 
and carousal was the order of the day. 

An account of the early days at the posts from the pen of an 
eye-witness gives this picturesque view of frontier society, as it 
then existed: "The traders and their clerks were then the aristoc- 
racy of the country; and to a Yankee at first sight presented a 
singular state of society. To see gentlemen selecting wives of the 
nut-brown natives, and raising children of mixed blood, the traders 
and clerks living in as much luxury as the resources of the country 
would admit, and the engages or boatmen living upon soup made of 
hulled corn, with barely enough tallow to season it, devoid of salt 
unless they purchased it themselves at a high price — all this to an 
American was a novel mode of living. The traders in this country 
were a singular compound; they were honest so far as they gave 
their word of honor to be relied upon, and in their business trans- 
actions between themselves seldom gave or took notes for balances 
or assumptions. It rarely happened that one of them was found 
who did not fulfill his promises; but when trading in the Indian 
country, any advantage that could be taken of each other in a 
transaction was not only considered lawful — such as trading each 
other's credit — but an indication of tact and cleverness in business. 
Two traders having spent the winter in the same neighborhood and 
thus taken every advantage they could of each other, would meet 
in the spring at Prairie du Chien and amicably settle all difficulties 
over a glass of wine." 

Most of the women at Prairie du Chien were the daughters of 
Indian traders. Their favorite beverage was tea, and despite its 
excessive cost, they would forego almost anything rather than miss 
a cup of tea. Prices of imported commodities were somewhat in- 
fluenced by the cost of home products. For instance, if flour sold 
at $8 per hundred pounds, hyson or young hyson tea was quoted at 
$8 per pound. When the price of flour fell to $6, tea would take a 



The Story of the State. 155 



sympathic tumble to the same figure. The ruling prices were these: 
Onions, $9 per bushel; eggs, ?1 per dozen; soap, $1 per pound; 
calico, $2 per yard; clay pipes, 40 cents apiece; common tobacco, $2 
per pound. 

The poor engages, or boatmen, were the ones most affected by 
the high prices, for they had nothing to exchange. The yearly wage 
was $83.33 and an equipment of two cotton shirts, one triangular 
blanket and a pair of shoes. For the pipes, tobacco and any other 
necessaries which the engage had to procure in the Indian country, 
he was compelled to pay the prices the traders charged. Most of 
them thus became heavily inv^olved in debt, and were unable to 
leave the country because the only means of transportation to 
Montreal was in the boats of the traders. In order to keep these 
men at their mercy, the traders encouraged them to run into debt. 

The contracts the boatmen were required to sign were of a cast- 
iron nature. They bound themselves "not to leave the duties 
assigned them by their employers or assigns either by day or 
night, under penalty of forfeiting their wages; to take charge of 
and safely keep the property put into their trust, and to give notice 
of any portending evil against their employers or their interests 
that should come to their knowledge." 

When an article was missed, invariably the trader charged it 
to the account of the engages, at a good round price. 

The method adopted by Astor to monopolize the fur trade in this 
region was as effective then as it has proved in more recent times 
in other branches of business. If some venturesome trader 
attempted to do business, the company would establish a post near 
by, sell goods at half their value, and when the opposition trader 
had been driven from the field, prices would shoot up again. One 
enterprising trader, a former clerk in the employ of the American 
Fur company, gave the company much trouble. This man, William 
Farnsworth, established himself at Sheboygan, and the usual tactics 
of the company failed to dislodge him. The secret of his success 
was a large supply of ardent spirits, a commodity that was pi'ohib- 
ited in the Indian trade. Finally, the company hired a band of 
Indians to seize Farnsworth's goods and whisky. The Indians came 
to the house, told Farnsworth they were brave men, and could 
neither be bribed nor intimidated in the execution of their designs. 

"I am brave, too," remarked Farnsworth, "and I'll prove it to 
you." 

As he spoke he rolled a barrel filled with gunpowder into the 
center of the room, placed it on end and knocked out the head. 
Taking a lighted candle he inserted it in the powder so that the 
light was a few inches above the powder, then complacently seated 
himself beside the keg and lit his pipe. 

It was more than the Indians had bargained for. They rushed 
out of the house, and never threatened Farnsworth after that. The 



156 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

American Fur company likewise abandoned its fruitless efforts to 
crush him. 

For many years the agents of the American Fur company 
practically controlled the barter in furs in all the country between 
Lake Michigan and the Mississippi river. Among their well-known 
representatives were Ramsey Crooks, one of the leaders of the 
Astoria expedition; John Lawe, an English Jew who operated in the 
Green Bay region; Augustin Grignon, grandson of the famous 
Charles Langlade. The posts of the company, advantageously 
located at meeting places and commanding sites, punctuated the 
water courses of the Wisconsin region. In 1821, goods valued at 
$15,000 were sent by the company to its Green Bay representatives. 
The same year the outfit of its agent at Prairie du Chien was 
valued at $25,000; goods valued at $11,000 were sent to the Lake 
Superior country, and the following year $19,000 represented the 
value of the outfits sent there. About 2,000 Indian hunters, supplied 
with guns and ammunition at these scattered posts, brought pel- 
tries to the factors to pay for the advances made to them. It has 
been estimated that about this time goods for the Indian trade 
brought to Wisconsin annually amounted to not less than $75,000 in 
value. 

The influence of the fur trade has been well described by 
Frederick J. Turner as "closing its mission by becoming the path- 
finder for agricultural and manufacturing civilization," for where 
the posts were located, the leading cities of the state have since been 
built. "The Indian village became the trading post, the trading 
post became the city. The trails became our early roads. The 
portages marked out the locations for canals, at Portage and Stur- 
geon Bay; while the Milwaukee and Rock river portages inspired 
the project of the canal of that name, which had an influence on 
the early occupation of the state. The trader often put his trading 
house at a river rapids, where the Indian had to portage his canoe, 
and thus found the location of our water powers." 

Among the cities that have been built on the sites of the 
trading stations and jack-knife posts, as the dependent stations were 
termed, may be enumerated Milwaukee, La Crosse, Green Bay, 
Prairie du Chien, Manitowoc, Sheboygan, Eau Claire, Black River 
Falls, Hudson, Racine, Two Rivers, Kaukauna, Peshtigo, Oconto, 
Fond du Lac, Oshkosh, Chippewa Falls, Kewaunee, Portage, 
Trempealeau, Madison, St. Croix Falls, Shullsburg, Rice Lake, 
Cassville, Menomonee. 

For many years the fur trade was Wisconsin's chief source of 
wealth. It continued such until the lead mine fever in Southwestern 
Wisconsin developed a new channel of industry and started the im- 
migration that brought thousands of settlers to the territory. 



CHAPTER V. 

RED BIRD'S UPRISING. 

Different tribes of Indians gathered at Prairie du Cliien in the 
summer of 1825 for a grand council, to make a general and lasting 
peace and to settle boundary disputes. The representatives of the 
government were Lewis Cass, governor of the territory, and Gen. 
Clark of Missouri. 

It was but a hollow peace, and signs were soon apparent that the 
Winnebagoes meditated trouble. About this time there was great 
excitement in the lead diggings of Southwestern Wisconsin, and 
prospectors were flocking into the country in great numbers, coming 
principally from the South. Alarming rumors multiplied, but owing 
to the presence of troops in the country, it was not believed the 
Winnebagoes would dare to take the war path. Unfortunately, an 
order came from Washington directing the garrison at Fort Craw- 
ford to abandon the old fort and proceed to Fort Snelling. The 
commander wasted no time in obeying instructions, leaving a brass 
swivel and some damaged arms for the defense of the place. The 
Winnebagoes supposed that the departure of the troops was 
prompted by fear. 

An event occurred in the spring of 1827 that greatly alarmed the 
people of Prairie du Chien. During the maple sugar season, one 
of the residents named Methode set up his sugar camp a dozen miles 
from the village, on the banks of Yellow creek. Prolonged absence 
of himself and family caused some of his friends to seek his camp, 
as they feared illness might have prevented their return. Near the 
mouth of the stream they cam6 upon the body of his dog, riddled 
with bullets. Where Methode had erected his rude dwelling of logs 
and boughs, the searchers came upon a mass of charred cinder. 
The five children, as well as Methode and his wife, had been killed — 
shockingly mangled — and their bodies thrown upon the blazing pyre. 
Suspicion pointed to a Winnebago hunting party. 

. When the American garrison evacuated Fort Crawford, they 
took with them to Fort Snelling two Winnebago warriors, detained 
as prisoners on a charge of theft. It began to be rumored among 
their kinsmen that the prisoners had been compelled to run the 
gauntlet and had thus lost their lives. The rumor was false, but 
led to serious consequences. 

There was just enough basis for the story to make trouble. 
During the latter part of May, 1827, Flat Mouth's band of Sandy 
Lake Ojibwas encamped within musket shot of the high stone walls 
of the fort. Here they entertained at a feast of meat and corn and 
sugar a few Dakota Indians, led by Toopunkah Zeze. The latter, 

157 



158 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



after smoking the peace pipe, rose to depart and treacherously fired 
their guns at their hosts. The soldiers pursued the assailants and 
captured some of them. Two of the Dakotas were turned over to 
the Ojibwas to be dealt with according to tribal custom. They were 
given a fair start and told to run for their lives. At a given signal 
the avengers started in pursuit. Fleet as the fugitives were, they 




BLACK HAWK WAR RELICS. 
IN POSSESSION OF STATE HISTORICAL, SOCIETY. 

(The uniform worn by Henry Dodge, shown in the group, is one of the interest- 
ing relics in the Museum at Madison.) 



could not escape the bullets of their pursuers, and both sank to 
the ground riddled with bullets. 

Located on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi river, in the 
vicinity of Trempealeau, was the village of a Winnebago chief 
named Red Bird. This Indian was well-known at Prairie du Chien, 
and was regarded as friendly to the whites. One night runners 
came to his wigwam to tell him that the two Winnebagoes at Fort 



The Story of the State. 159 



Snelling had been executed. From this time Red Bird was the 
implacable enemy of the Americans. He at once prepared for ven- 
geance. The law of the tribe was that for every life taken, two 
enemies must be slain before vengeance was satisfied. With a com- 
panion called Wekau (the Sun) he paddled down stream in his 
canoe till he came to Prairie du Chien. After entering the house 
of Judge Lockwood and frightening the women, Red Bird and 
Wekau repaired to the house of a farmer named Registre Gagnier, 
brother of the village blacksmith. Here the kettle was boiling over 
the fire, and the hospitable farmer invited the two Indians to join 
the family at the table. With murder in their hearts the Winne- 
bagoes partook of the meal, and while meditating treachery smoked 
the pipe of peace with Gagnier. At an auspicious moment. Red 
Bird gave a signal and Gagnier fell dead as he received the contents 
of Red Bird's gun in his breast. An old soldier named Solomon 
Lipcap was hoeing weeds in the garden. A shot ended his career, 
also. Mrs. Gagnier seized a gun, leveled it at Wekau, and held 
him at bay while she escaped through a rear window with her 
3-year-old boy tightly clinging to her back. She had to leave her 
infant daughter behind. This child Wekau scalped and left for dead. 

Great excitement was created by Mrs. Gagnier's startling news 
when she reached the village. A rescue party at once hurried to 
her house, only to find the mangled bodies of Gagnier, Lipcap and 
the little girl. The latter was alive, and survived her terrible 
wounds. She grew to womanhood, and some of her descendants yet 
live in Prairie du Chien. 

The alarm created by the savage work of Red Bird and Wekau 
was intensified when two keelboats arrived with the news of a 
fierce attack made on them the day before at the mouth of the 
Bad Ax river. Aboard were three dead men and four wounded boat- 
men. The sides of the boats were honeycombed with bullet perfora- 
tions, more than 500 shots having penetrated bow and sides. These 
boats had but a short time before left Prairie du Chien with supplies 
for the garrison at Fort Snelling. On their way up Indians had 
gone aboard, but had not molested the crew. When the keelboats 
returned, war yells greeted them on both sides of the stream, but 
no attack was made till they reached the Bad Ax. On an island 
toward which the boats had to drift in making the channel were 
gathered some of Red Bird's warriors engaged in the war dance 
over the three scalps brought by their chieftain. 

There was a strong east wind that carried the first keelboat 
rapidly towards the place where the Indians were. Unsuspicious of 
danger the steersman had lashed his steering oar, while the force of 
the sweeps sent the craft straight to the point of ambush. A volley 
of shots and the accompaniment of war-whoops apprised the boat- 
men of the danger, and they threw themselves flat upon the deck to 
avoid the hail of bullets. A little negro boy named Peter had his 



160 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

leg shattered, but managed to crawl below. Under cover of the 
fusilade, two Indians swam to the boat, mounted the roof and tried 
to ground the vessel on a sandbar. One of them was peppered at 
till he fell into the river. A timely bullet hit the second Indian, 
and he fell into the boat. By this time the keelboat was perilously 
near the sand bank. An act of heroism saved the crew from the 
destruction that seemed inevitable. 

Observing the danger and realizing the necessity for prompt 
action a sailor who went by the sobriquet of Saucy Jack leaped to 
the bow, oar in hand, and moved the boat off into the cuiTent of the 
channel. Bullets whistled by his ears, but he kept his place till 
his pole had pushed the boat afloat. It was a marvel that he was 
not riddled, but not a bullet struck the brave sailor. 

A contemporary summary of the casualties states that thirty- 
seven Indians were engaged in this fight, of whom seven were killed 
and twice that number wounded. Nearly 600 of their bullets pene- 
trated the boat. But six of the crew were hit, two being killed out- 
right and two mortally wounded. But for the courage of Jack 
Mandeville, the sailor, doubtless all of them would have been 
massacred. 

The second keelboat was fired upon, but its crew escaped injury. 
The arrival of the boats at Prairie du Chien threw the inhabitants 
into a panic. The old fort and blockhouses were in a state of dis- 
repair, but the people hastened to strengthen the defenses. The old 
wornout muskets, left by the garrison, were turned over to the 
blacksmiths to put into as good condition as possible, while men 
and women piled a bank of earth around the rotton logs of the fort, 
and filled barrels with water in case an attempt was made to fire 
the fort. Ninety men and women capable of handling a musket 
were drilled for emergencies, and were divided between the block- 
houses. By sunset all the families had removed to the fort with 
their goods and chattels. A couple of couriers were dispatched to 
Fort Snelling to ask for help. One of the couriers was J. B. Loyer, 
an old voyageur. He was furnished with a horse and promised $50. 
His companion, Duncan Graham, was also given a horse and the 
promise of a reward of $20. 

In the region of the lead diggings the alarm was greater than in 
the immediate vicinity of hostilities. 

"A scene of the most alarming and disorderly confusion ensued," 
says the account of Col. Daniel M. Parkinson, an eye-witness. 
"Alarm and consternation were depicted in every countenance, 
thousands flocking to Galena for safety, when in fact it was the 
most exposed and unsafe place in the whole country. All were 
without arms, order or control. The roads were lined in all direc- 
tions with frantic and fleeing men, women and children, expecting 
every moment to be overtaken, tomahawked and scalped by the 
Indians. It was said, and I presume with truth, that the encamp- 



The Story of the State. 161 



ment of fugitives at the head of Apple river, on the first night of 
the alarm, was four miles in extent, and numbered 3,000 persons." 

At this time Wisconsin was part of Michigan territory, and 
Lewis Cass was governor. Rumors of impending trouble having 
reached the governor, he made the trip to Prairie du Chien in a 
canoe, arriving there on the Fourth of July. With the energy that 
characterized this rugged old frontier governor, Cass organized a 
volunteer company for the emergency, reentered his canoe and went 
on to Galena. Thence he dispatched another force to the assistance 
of Prairie du Chien, and continued on to St. Louis to enlist the aid 
of Gen. Atkinson, who was in charge of Jefferson barracks. Atkin- 
son promptly departed for the upper Mississippi. 

In the meantime. Col. Snelling had arrived with his men from 
the Minnesota country and Col. Henry Dodge had raised a volun- 
teer force of lead miners to carry the war into the enemy's country. 
These volunteers were mounted, and while they scouted along the 
banks of the Wisconsin river. Gen. Atkinson's force ascended in 
boats. At Green Bay, also, word had been received of the difficul- 
ties below, and Maj. Whistler was ascending the Fox with a 
volunteer force of Oneida and Stockbridge Indians. Whistler's 
forces encamped on a high bluff, where the ensuing year Fort 
Winnebago was constructed. 

Ferreted from their hiding places by Dodge's mounted volun- 
teers, and driven before them in frantic endeavors to escape, the 
Winnebagoes found themselves hemmed in between the forces of 
Whistler and Atkinson, and concluded to surrender. At midday an 
Indian came to Whistler's camp and seated himself on the ground 
beside one of the tents. Being asked the purpose of his coming, he 
pointed to the sky. "Do not strike," he said. "When the sun is 
there to-morrow," looking up to the place indicated by his uplifted 
hand, "they will come in." 

"Who?" 

"Red Bird and Wekau." 

Wrapping his blanket around him the Indian departed as quietly 
as he had come. 

The incidents connected with the surrender of Red Bird are 
graphically narrated by Col. Thomas L. McKenney, an eye-witness. 
This is the narrative in condensed form: "At about noon of the day 
following there were seen descending a mound on the Portage, a 
body of Indians — some were mounted and some were on foot. Three 
flags were borne by them — 'two, one in front and one "in the rear, 
were American, and one in the center was white. They bore no 
arms. On a sudden we heard a singing. Those who were familiar 
with the air said: 'It is a death song.' When still nearer some 
present who knew him said: 'It is the Red Bird singing his death 
;Song!' 



162 



Leading Events of ^yuconsin History. 



"The moment a halt was made on the margin of the river, 
preparatory to crossing over, two scalp yells were heard. The 
Menomonees and other Indians who had accompanied us were lying 
carelessly about on the ground, regardless of what was going on, 
but when the scalp yells were uttered they sprang as one man to 
their feet, seized their rifles and were ready for battle. They were 
at no loss to know that the yells were scalp yells; but they had not 
heard with sufficient accuracy to decide whether they indicated 
scalps to be taken or given, but doubtless inferred the first. 

"Barges were sent across to receive, and an escort of military to 
accompany them within our lines. The white flag which had been 
seen in the distance was borne by the Red Bird. In the lead was 
Car-i-mi-nie (Walking Turtle), a distinguished chief, who said: 




Black Sparrow Hawk. 
From a Painting in Possession of the Wisconsin Historical Society. 
(While Black Hawk was a prisoner at Fortress Monroe, R. M. Sully, the well- 
known artist, painted his portrait. The portrait in the rooms of the Historical 
Society is a replica of the original.) 



'They are here — like braves they have come in — ^treat them as 
braves — do not put them in irons.' " 

The rest of the story is told in a letter to secretary of War 
James Barbour: "All eyes were fixed on Red Bird, and well they 
might be — for of all the Indians I ever saw, he is without exception 
the most perfect in form, in face and gesture. In height he is 
almost six feet, straight, but without restraint. His proportions are 
those of the most exact symmetry. 

"His face was painted — ^one side red, the other intermixed with 
green and white. Around his neck he wore a collar of blue wampum, 
beautifully mixed with white, which was sewn on to a piece of cloth, 
the width of the wampum being about two inches — whilst the claws 
of the panther, or wildcat, distant from each other about a quarter 



The Story of the State. 163 



of an inch with their points inward, formed the rim of the collar. 
Around his neck were hanging strands of wampum of various 
lengths, the .circles enlarging as they descended. He was clothed 
in a Yankton dress — new and beautiful. The material is of dressed 
elk or deerskin, almost a pure white. Blue beads were employed to 
vary and enrich the fringe of the leggings. On his feet he wore 
moccasins. 

"A piece of scarlet cloth of about a quarter of a yard deep, and 
double that width, a slit being cut in its middle, so as to admit the 
passing through of his head, rested, one-half on his breast beneath 
the wampum and claws, and the other on his back. On one 
shoulder, and near his breast, was a beautifully ornamented feather, 
nearly black, near which were two pieces of thinly-shaven wood 
in the form of two compasses, a little open, each about six inches 
long, richly wrapped around with porcupine's quills, dyed yellow, 
red and blue. On the tip of one shoulder was a tuft of horsehair,, 
dyed red and a little curled, mixed up with ornaments. Across the 
breast, in a diagonal position and bound tight to it, was his war- 
pipe, at least two feet long, brightly ornamented with dyed horse- 
hair, the feathers and bills of birds. In one of his hands he held 
the white flag, and in the other the calumet or pipe of peace." 

It was an interesting scene. "There he stood. Not a muscle 
moved, nor was the expression of his face changed a particle. He 
appeared to be conscious that according to Indian law and measur- 
ing the deed he had committed by the injustice and wrongs and 
cruelties of the white man. he had done no wrong. The law which 
demanded an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth so harmonized 
with his conscience as to secure its repose. As to death — he had 
been taught to despise it. His white jacket, having upon it but a 
single piece of red, appeared to indicate the purity of his past life, 
which had been stained by only a single crime; for all agree that 
the Red Bird had never before soiled his fingers with the blood 
of the white man, or committed a bad action. His war-pipe, bound 
close to his heart, seemed to indicate his love of war, in common 
with his race, which was no longer to be gratified." 

As the band struck up a hymn, Red Bird sat down next to the 
miserable-looking Wekau, a diminutive and misshapen specimen 
of ugly humanity. Taking some tobacco from an otter-skin pouch, 
he filled the bowl of his calumet and calmly began to smoke. His 
companions then addressed the military officers, saying they had 
surrendered the murderers to appease the wrath of the white men, 
and offered twenty horses in compensation for the three lives that 
had been taken. They asked that their kinsmen might not be put 
in irons. They were assured their request would be granted. 

Red Bird next stood up and stepped forward. 

"I am ready," he said simply. Then he paused, advanced a few 
steps and with great dignity added: "I do not wish to be put in 



164 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

irons. Let me be free. I have given away my life — it is gone — 
like that." 

He stooped as he spoke, took some dust between his tumb and 
forefinger, blew it into the air and watched it melt from sight. 

"It is gone — like that," he repeated. He paused a moment, and 
added: "I would not take it back." 

To show that he left all things behind him and in token of 
submission. Red Bird threw his hands behind his back and marched 
up to Maj. Whistler. Escorted by a file of men, he was marched 
to a tent, with Wekau, and a guard was set over him. The rest of 
the Winnebagoes were given tobacco and provisions, and departed. 

When Gen. Atkinson's troops and Col. Dodge's mounted volun- 
teers came to the portage, the prisoners were turned over to them, 
and taken to Prairie du Chien. Here Red Bird died in prison. 
Wekau and another Indian named Chic-hon-sic were tried for 
murder and convicted. Preparations were made to hang them on 
the 26th of December. On Christmas day a pardon from the presi- 
dent reached the authorities. President Adams had signed the 
pardon Nov. 3. 

There is no doubt that but for the prompt measures taken by 
Gov. Lewis Cass, the uprising of Red Bird and his people would 
have led to disastrous consequences. The feeling of unrest among 
the Wisconsin Indians at this time was universal, and the Potta- 
wattomies were on the point of joining the revolt. Had Gov. Cass 
been less energetic, doubtless they would have done so, and a 
general Indian war would have occurred in the Northwest. Gov. 
Cass was a man cast in heroic mould. When he heard of the 
threatened outbreak he at once went to Green Bay, took a canoe 
with twelve voyageurs, ascended the Fox, portaged to the Wiscon- 
sin river, went to Prairie du Chien, thence to Galena and on to St. 
Louis. It was a hazardous journey, of more than a thousand miles. 
Had he not stirred the authorities to prompt action in dispatching 
succor to Prairie du Chien, no doubt all of its inhabitants would 
have shared the fate that befell the occupants of the isolated farm- 
house visited by Red Bird on his mission of revenge. 




First Norwegian Church in Wisconsin. - 
Muskego, 1S44. 



CHAPTER VI. 

LIFE IN THE DIGGINGS. 

With the keen scent of birds of prey, gamblers and other 
adventurers flocked to the lead diggings of Southwestern Wisconsin 
during the great mining excitement that occurred in the early 20's. 
As was the case later in California, gambling dens and grog shops 
were constructed in the midst of the cabins of the miners, and the 
fruit of the prospector's thrift often went into the coffers of the 
card shark. During the years when the lead mines were being 
developed the aggregation of cabins that dotted the region were the 
typical frontier camps of a mineral country, with their swagger and 
utter disregard of any law but their own — prototypes of the later 
gulch towns of the far West. Their names were characteristic, too, 
and some of them yet retain a place on the map of Wisconsin. 
Among them were Hardscrabble Diggings, Buncome, Snake Hollow, 
Shake-the-Rag-Under-the-Hill, Rattle Snake Diggings, Big Patch 
and other places with more euphonious, if less descriptive, names. 

It was about 1822 that the so-called discovery of the lead 
diggings in Southwestern Wisconsin occurred. For nearly two 
centuries the existence of the ore in that region had been known 
to white men, but the Indians were unwilling to let them penetrate 
to the mines. This was especially the case when the pushing Amer- 
icans began to travel from the Southern States to the upper 
Mississippi in quest of fortune. Before this Frenchmen had been 
given permission to work the mines to some extent, for the Indian 
was ever wont to fraternize with the representatives of this volatile 
race, but Americans were rigidly excluded. The introduction of 
firearms among the Indians had taught them the value of the lead 
as an article of barter. It was stated in a letter written to the 
secretary of war in 1810 by Nicholas Boilvin, agent at Prairie du 
Chien, that the quantity of lead exchanged by Indians for goods 
during the season was about 400,000 pounds. 

Doubtless none but Frenchmen had been at the mines previous 
to the war of 1812, but in 1816 a St. Louis trader named John Shaw 
succeeded in penetrating to the mines of the Fever river district 
by passing himself as a Frenchman. He was one of the traders 
who made periodical trips to Prairie du Chien, propelling the boats 
by means of poles and sails. It required from two weeks to a month 
to make the trip up the river, while the return journey occupied 
from a week to ten days. The boats carried miscellaneous supplies 
to Prairie du Chien, and their return cargo consisted principally of 
lead. 

Shaw saw about twenty smelting places, the mineral being 
smelted in the crudest way imaginable. This was Shaw's descrip- 

165 



166 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

tion of the process: '"A hole or cavity was dug in the face of a 
piece of sloping ground, about two feet in depth and as much iu 
width at the top; this hole was made in the shape of a mill-hopper, 
which was about eight or nine inches square; other narrow stones 
were laid across grate-wise; a channel or eye was dug from the 
sloping side of the ground inwards to the bottom of the hopper. 
This channel was about a foot in width and in height, and was filled 
Avith dry wood and brush. The hopper being filled with the mineral, 
and the wood ignited, the molten lead fell through the stones at the 
bottom of the hopper; and this was discharged through the eye, 
over the earth, in bowl-shaped masses called plats, each of which 
weighed about seventy pounds." 

Glowing notices of the richness of the lead mines of the Upper 
Mississippi appeared in St. Louis newspapers in 1822, and started a 
migration thitherward. In order to overawe the Indians, who would 
not let white men enter the district, the government dispatched 
detachments of troops from Prairie du Chien and the Rock Island 
forts. Finding that resistance would be futile, the Indians quietly 
submitted to the invasion of their mineral territory. Thus began, a 
few miles south of the present border of the state, what at one time 
was the leading industry of Wisconsin, as the fur trade had been 
up to that period. The newcomers were mainly from the Southern 
states and territories, and thus the first seeds of American origin in 
Wisconsin were the planting of men from Kentucky, Tennessee and 
Missouri. They came by boat and in caravans on horseback. Soon 
the prospector's shovel was upturning the sod on the hillsides of 
Southwestern Wisconsin, the Indian occupants in sullen resentment 
biding their time for mischief. Galena became the center of the 
mining region. 

Some of the adventurers who came in the expectation of acquir- 
ing sudden wealth were doomed to disappointment. There were 
some who sought to avoid the rigors of a Northern winter by coming 
in the spring and returning to. their genial Southern climate when 
snow began to fiy. These tenderfeet were denominated "slickers" 
by the hardier miners, an appellation that was later transferred to 
the state of Illinois. Their superficial workings were called "sucker 
holes." 

Despite muttered threats from the Indians, and other dishearten- 
ing circumstances, population rapidly increased. Red Bird's dis- 
turbance caused a temporary exodus, but the frightened miners soon 
returned. How busily pick and shovel were plied may be gathered 
from the reports of lead manufactured. It was soon seen that negro 
labor could be well utilized, and some of the Southerners brought 
slaves to do the work. The population rapidly increased. In 1825 
it was estimated that there were 200 persons; three years later 
fully 10,000, one-twentieth being women and about 100 free blacks. 



The Story of the State. 167 

The lead product had increased in the same period from 439,473 
pounds to 12,957,100 pounds. 

Most of the miners followed the Indian plan of smelting in a 
log furnace. It was a crude device, and there was much wastage. 
They likewise imitated the Indian mode of blasting — heating the 
rock and then splitting it by throwing water on it. "I saw one 
place where they (the Indians) dug forty-five feet deep," says the 
account of Dr. Moses Meeker, a pioneer of the period. "Their man- 
ner of doing it was by drawing the mineral dirt and rock in what 
they called a mocock, a kind of basket made of birch bark, or dry 
hide of buckskin, to which they attached a rope made of rawhide. 
Their tools were a hoe made for the Indian trade, an axe and a 
crowbar made of an old gun barrel flattened at the breech, which 
they used for removing the rock. Their mode of blasting was 
rather tedious, to be sure; they got dry wood, kindled a fire along 
the rock as far as they wished to break it. After getting the rock 
hot they poured cold water upon it, which so cracked it that they 
could pry it up. At the old Buck Lead they removed many hundred 
tons of rock in that manner, and had raised many thousand pounds 
of mineral or lead ore." 

During this period there came to Wisconsin some of the men 
who became most notable in its territorial history. Among them 
were Henry Dodge, afterwards governor,, who brought with him 
from Missouri a number of negro slaves; Ebenezer Brigham, pioneer 
of Blue Mounds; Henry Gratiot and Col. William S. Hamilton. 
The latter was a son of Alexander Hamilton, who was killed by 
Aaron Burr, in a duel. 

Some of the miners realized what in those days were con- 
sidered great fortunes. One man sank a shaft near Hazel Green 
on the site of an old Indian digging. "At four and a half feet 
he found block mineral extending over all the bottom of his hole," 
in the language of Dr. Meeker's narrative. "He went to work and 
cut out steps on the side of the hole, to be ready for the next 
day's operations. Accordingly, the next day he commenced opera- 
tions. The result of his day's work was seventeen thousand pounds 
of mineral upon the bank at night." 

After raising about a hundred thousand pounds, the digging was 
abandoned. Another prospector took possession and secured more 
than a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. 

Most of the lead that was smelted went to Galena, to be trans- 
ported thence to St. Louis and New Orleans. Long caravans of 
ore wagons, some of them drawn by as many as eight yoke of oxen, 
wore deep ruts into the primitive road that went by way of Min- 
eral Point and Belmont to this metropolis of the mines. About 
$80 a ton was obtained for the ore. About 1830 tariff agitation 
seems to have caused a great drop in prices. At this period the 



168 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

federal government exacted from the miners what was known as a 
lead rent. The miners addressed a memorial to the secretary of 
war, whose department had control of the collection of the min- 
eral rents, complaining of excessive taxation. The claim was made 
by them in their memorial "that they have paid a greater amount 
of taxes than any equal number of citizens since the settlement of 
America!" The smelters were required to pay 10 per cent, of all 
lead manufactured and had to haul the rent lead a distance of fifty 
to sixty miles to the United States depot. It was not until 1846 
that congress abandoned the leasing system. 

Doubtless the typical mining camp in Wisconsin when the lead 
excitement was in its heyday was Mineral Point. Its straggling 
lines of huts were ranged along a deep gorge, and at all hours the 
sound of revelry could be heard emanating from the saloons and 
gambling houses. Dancing and singing, with the accompaniment 
of rude music, and drinking and gambling furnished the enter- 
tainment for the wilder spirits. The town bore the appellation of 
the Little Shake-Rag, or Shake-Rag-Under-the-Hill. The origin 
of the peculiar name is explained by an early-day traveler in this 
wise: 

"Females," says this account of sixty years ago, "in consequence 
of the dangers and privations of the primitive times, were as rare 
in the diggings as snakes upon the Emerald Isle. Consequently 
the bachelor miner from necessity performed the domestic duties 
of cook and washerwoman, and the preparation of meals was indi- 
cated by appending a rag to an upright pole, which, fluttering in 
the breeze, telegraphically conveyed the glad tidings to his hungered 
brethren upon the hill. Hence this circumstance at a very early 
date gave this provincial sobriquet of Shake-Rag, or Shake-Rag- 
Under-the-Hill." 

About the time that Wisconsin became detached from Michigan, 
a well-known English geologist named George Featherstonhaugh 
visited the lead region. On his return to England he published a 
book of travels, wherein he gives an amusing account of his trip. 
It is interesting as showing the conditions that existed in Wis- 
consin at the time. The Englishman went to a tavern and was 
amazed to find that all the Southern gentlemen who had been 
attracted to the diggings were "ginnerals, colonels, judges or doc- 
tors." The tavern was full, so the postmaster invited him to 
sleep at his house. There was no extra bed, and he slept on the 
floor. 

"On awakening the next morning," Featherstonhaugh remarks 
in his book, "I found it exceedingly cold, and asked permission to 
have a fire lighted, which was very obligingly granted. Some wood 
was accordingly brought in, and just as I had got it nicely burning 
and was preparing to make my toilet, a dirty, unshaven but con- 



The Story of the State. 



169 



fident-looking fellow walked into the room with nothing but his 
nether garments on, and immediately turning his back to the fire, 
engrossed it all to himself. His free-and-easy way was not at all 
to my taste, and threatened to interfere very much with my com- 
fort. Under other circumstances I should not have hesitated to 
turn him out; but situated as I was, it was far from a safe pro- 
ceeding, or, indeed, a justifiable one. It was certainly very cold, 
and I should have been glad to have had the fire to myself; but 
I had been treated hospitably, and the least I could do was to be 
hospitable to others; besides, my barefooted friend had an air about 




him that imported something beyond the low swaggerer, something 
that smacked of authority. This might be the governor, or some 
great man en dishabille, so I thought it best to meet him in his own 
manner, by slipping a pair of pantaloons on, and then addressing 
him in a friendly manner. It was most fortunate that I acted just 
as it became me to do, for he soon let me know who he was. He 
was no less a personage than 'the court,' for so they generally 
call the presiding judge in the United States, and was beyond 
all question the greatest man in the place. He was, in fact, the 
personage of the locality for the moment, and it turned out that 
the postmaster had given him up his only bedroom, and that Tie 
had good-naturedly given it up for me for one night, and had taken 
the majesty of the law to sleep behind the counter in a little shop 



170 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

where the postoffice was kept, with blankets, crockery, cheese and 
all sorts of things around him, and had, very naturally, com 3 to 
warm himself in his own quarters." 

One night behind the counter with the cheese and crockery 
was all the court was willing to endure, and the traveler was com- 
pelled to go to a tavern. The meals were not to the taste of the 
Englishman, but as Mineral Point depended for all supplies on what 
vas brought from a great distance by wagon, the bill of fare was 
necessarily restricted. Flour, which in the Atlantic states sold at 
$5 or $6 a barrel, was $14 in Mineral Point. Fresh meat was not 
obtainable, and everybody was too busy with pick and shovel 
to raise garden produce. Sleeping accommodations were likewise 
limited, each room being provided with five or six beds. A char- 
acteristic incident of the mining country is told in Featherston- 
haugh's narrative. Being obliged to pass the night at a tavern 
frequented by miners and gamblers, and knowing their habits of 
gambling until a late hour, he went as soon as he had supped to 
the only bedroom there was in the house, and selected one of the 
beds. Toward morning he was awakened by some one turning the 
bedclothes down with the evident purpose of turning in. Aware 
that no time was to be lost, he gathered the clothes up, assumed 
a boxing attitude and told the intruder that if he wanted that bed 
he would have to fight for it. The man was nonplussed at this 
unusual reception. 

"Stranger," he remarked, "you sartin don't kalkerlate on keep- 
ing all that are bed to yourself?" 

"Yes I do, and that you shall find." 

"Waal, then, if you are so almighty pertiklar, I swar I'll be as 
pertiklar as you, and I'll turn in 'ere." With that he went into a 
bed where three of his companions had turned in before him. 

The leading industry of Wisconsin flourished until the gold 
discovery in California proved a stronger magnet; unfriendly tariff 
legislation also influenced a decline of its importance. Inadequate 
transportation facilities also operated to prevent the successful 
prosecution of lead mining. In this age of myriad ribbons of steel 
radiating from every commercial center, it is hard to appreciate the 
difficulties encountered by the pioneers in transporting commodi- 
ties. There were then no railroads in the Northwest, and the great 
transportation projects all centered in canals. The lead industry 
and its transportation necessities influenced many of the early canal 
schemes which played a large part in the early politics of the ter- 
ritory. The Fox-Wisconsin route, as well as that of the greater 
Mississippi river highway, was used for the shipment of ore to a 
considerable extent. 

Observing that shot towers in Missouri were successful ven- 
tures, a Green Bay merchant named Daniel Whitney believed a 



The Stori/ of the State. 



171 



similar enterprise could be made financially profitable in Wisconsin. 
He organized a company, and they built their shot tower at Helena, 
on the Wisconsin river. This was in 1831. The tower was not com- 
pleted till two years later. It was built on the summit of a bold 
escarpment fronting Pike creek. 

A contemporary description of the tower gives these interesting 
details: "One hundred feet from the base of the rock there is a 
ledge or landing place; on this ledge rises the shot tower, of frame, 
eighty feet to the roof; of course the depth from the top of the 
tower to the base of the rock is 180 feet. A well or shaft has 
been sunk through the rock, which is of sandstone, 100 feet, and a 
lateral drift or entrance, ninety feet in length, seven feet high and 
six feet wide has been cut from the bank of the creek to the per- 
pendicular shaft." 

The daily output made by six hands was 5,000 weight of shot. 
The melted lead was converted into shot in this wise, as described 
by Clark Hickox of Dodgeville: "At the edge of the cliff stood the 
melting house, with two kettles in which mineral was prepared for 
dropping. A little to the east of this were an arch and a large 
kettle protected by a small roof. Here the lead was tempered by 
tne addition of arsenic, and run into pigs for further use, and here 
also the imperfect shot was remelted. The pigs thus obtained were 
used to give the requisite brittleness to the lead from which the 
shot was made. A small portion would suffice to temper a kettle 
holding 1,000 pounds of lead. The dropping ladle was perforated 
with holes of varying size, and when partly full of melted lead 
would be tilted gently sidewise, forcing the metal out in drops to 
form the shot, which falling 180 feet would assume a spherical 
shape and at the same time be cooled. At the bottom of the shaft 
the shot fell into the shot-cistern, filled with water, which served 
both to break the fall and cool the shot." 




First Newspaper Office in Wisconsin. 
Green Bay. 1836. 



CHAPTER VII. 

BLACK hawk's WAR. 

Intrusion by squatters upon hunting grounds assured to the 
Indians by the federal government was the main cause of the Black 
Hawk war in 1832. But for the craven cowardice of Illinois volun- 
teers, the disturbance would have ended shortly after its com- 
mencement, without serious consequences. During the fierce pur- 
suit across Wisconsin, the Sac warriors were hunted with relentless 
fury; women and children were remorselessly massacred; the nag 
of truce was disregarded, and starving men, willing to surrender, 
were shot and bayonetted, and even scalped. Black Hawk's band 
of a thousand people was annihilated in the end, less than two 
hundred of them surviving the war. The lives of nearly three 
hundred frontier rangers, and of women and children in the exposed 
fringe of settlements, was the price paid for the victory. 

"I liked my town, my cornfields and the home of my people. 
I fought for them," Black liawk said simply in after years. 

Long before actual hostilities began, trouble had been brewing 
between Black Hawk's Sacs and white intruders upon their territory. 
By the terms of a league of peace and amity established more than 
a quarter of a century before (1804), the chiefs of the great Sac 
and Fox confedei-acy had yielded to the government nearly all their 
land possessions east of the Mississippi river. The right of occu- 
pancy for hunting and cultivation had been given them until the 
government saw fit to place the lands on the market. Pursuant to 
this agreement, the Sacs under Black Hawk occupied a fertile tract 
at the foot of the Rock River rapids. On the sides of a bluff, com- 
prising about 800 acres, were the tribe's fields of corn, beans, pump- 
kins and squashes. Black Hawk's village was one of the largest 
Indian settlements on the continent, and was ideally located. Ex- 
cellent pasturage for their horses was afforded by the blue grass 
herbage; in the rapids of the river fish abounded; springs gushed 
forth from the bluffs. For a century, almost, the Sacs had made 
this spot their home. The graves of their forefathers were here, 
and made the soil doubly sacred. 

Covetous squatters began encroaching here. Land was plenty 
elsewhere, and the border was two- score miles eastward yet, but 
the restless frontiersmen were pushing ahead of the regular line of 
advance. The growing crops and the splendid situation tempted 
their cupidity. With cool disregard of Indian rights, the whites 
began to fence in the cornfields and even to occupy the lodges. 
Upon returning from a hunt Black Hawk found a white man's 
family comfortably occupying his own wigwam. For some time 

172 



The Story of the State. 173 

enmity was confined to muttered threats, but soon trouble ensuea. 
Indian women were averse to climbing wliite men's fences, and lelt 
the rails down, and this led to personal encounters. 

In order to secure redress. Black Hawk went to Rock Island to 
present his grievances, but received scant comfort. He was advised 
to remove his band across the Mississippi river. This he refused to 
•do. When he returned, after an absence of one moon, affairs at the 
village were in worse condition than ever. Before returning he 
had sought the counsel of the Winnebago prophet. White Cloud, 
whose village was located some thirty miles up the Rock river. 

"Never give up your village," this crafty medicine man had 
warned him, "or the bones of your people will be ploughed up and 
scattered." 

The whites having appealed to the government, it was deter- 
mined to make a military display that would awe the Indians into 
compliance with the demand for removal. Gen. Gaines and a 
detachment of regulars appeared on the scene and commanded the 
Indians to move across the river. Black Hawk, who had not been 
consulted when the other chiefs of the confederacy signed the treaty 
that gave their lands to the government, stubbornly resisted the 
mandate at a council that was held. 

"We have never sold our country," he declared, "and we are 
determined to hold our village." 

"And who is Black Hawk?" angrily demanded Gen. Gaines. 

"I am a Sac! My forefather was a Sac, and all the nations call 
me a Sac!" proudly replied the chief. 

"I came here neither to beg nor to hire you to leave your vil- 
lage," retorted the officer. "My business is to remove you — peace- 
ably if I can, forcibly if I must." 

This broke up the council. During the night of the last day 
given him to comply with the order. Black Hawk removed his band 
to the west shore of the Mississippi, and touched the goosequill that 
betokened a treaty of peace. 

While Black Hawk was smarting from the indignities to which 
his people had been subjected, there arrived at his village a bearer 
of tidings from the British agent at Fort Maiden. Ne-a-pope, 
another chief of the Hawk's tribe, was the messenger. This chief, 
like the Hawk, had British affiliations. On his way back from Mai- 
den he had tarried at the Winnebago village of the Prophet, whose 
hatred of the Americans was intense. Ne-a-pope and White Cloud 
together fabricated a tale meant to stir Black Hawk to active 
hostilities. This false story Ne-a-pope now poured into the receptive 
ear of the Hawk. He said that "their British father would send 
them guns, ammunition, provisions and clothing early in the spring; 
the vessels were to bring them by way of Mil-wa-ke. The Prophet 
had also received wampum and tobacco from the different nations 



174 Leading Events of Wiseonsin History. 



on the lakes — Ottawas, Chippewas and Pottawattomies; and as tor 
the Winnebagoes, he had them all at command; that all these tribes 
would fight for them, if necessary, and the British would support 
them." 

Lured by these false promises of aid, Black Hawk determines 
to attempt the rescue of his village in the spring. Before this he 
sought to arrange an interview with the Great Father at Washington 
to secure a peaceable adjustment, but his efforts were repulsed. 
He sought to enlist Chief Keokuk in his contemplated invasion, 
but the latter was friendly to the Americans, and declined nis 
overtures. 

Hoisting a British flag, Black Hawk's people crossed the Missis- 
sippi early in April, and began a march toward the village of the 
Prophet. His five hundred warriors bestrode their horses, while the 
women, children and old men carried provisions and equipage in a 
flotilla of canoes. Messengers came to them from Gen. Atkinson, at 
Rock Island, ordering their return. Defiant answers were sent back, 
and the party proceeded on to the Prophet's town on the Kock 
river of Illinois. 

Before going very far. Black Hawk realized that he was the 
victim of Ne-a-pope's deception. The allies who had been repre- 
sented as eager to take the war path failed to appear. Instead word 
reached Black Hawk that a considerable force of Illinois volunteers 
was hot on his trail. He determined to send a flag of truce and 
ascertain whether he would be permitted to descend the Kock river 
and return to the west side of the Mississippi river. While he was 
spreading his medicine bags regaling a visiting deputation of Potta- 
wattomie chiefs at a dog feast, word came that several hundred 
horsemen were encamping in a grove several miles distant. Accord- 
ingly he dispatched three of his young men with a flag of tinice to 
conduct the rangers to his camp. He sent five warriors to follow 
the trace messengers. 

The rangers had encamped in a clump of woods. They had par- 
taken quite liberally of whisky, and were in the mood to wipe the 
entire race of red men off the face of the earth. When they observed 
the truce messengers approaching, some of them jumped on their 
horses and took the three Indians prisoners. Then, observing the 
five braves who were watching events from some distance awaj% 
about twenty of the horsemen galloped madly in pursuit. Two of 
the Indians were overtaken, shot and scalped. Their three com- 
panions reached Black Hawk's camp with the news. When the chief 
heard the treatment accorded his messengers, who had borne a flag 
of truce, he raised the war yell of the Sacs, and in an impassioned 
harangue urged his braves to seek revenge for the cowardly attack. 
Most of his young men were absent, some ten miles away, but forty 
braves responded by seizing their weapons and giving an answering 
war yell. 



The Story of the State. 175 

When the bearers of the flag of truce were taken prisoners, tney 
delivered the message sent by Black Hawk. Several horsemen at 
this juncture returned from the pursuit of the other live braves. 
They cocked their guns and fired at the three prisoners. One of 
them was killed; his two companions rushed through the crowd and 
hid in the brush. They were pursued. One white man who ventured 
too near their ambush was brained by a flying tomahawk. The 
Indian scalped him, mounted his horse and escaped. 

Having had a taste of warfare, the Illinois rangers concluded 
to finish the day by destroying Black Hawk's encampment. They, 
moved upon it at full gallop. The forty Indians saw several hundred 
mounted rangers advancing upon them, and determined to die 
bravely. With a yell, they charged and fired, as the enemy halted 
some distance from them. To the intense astonishment of the 
Indians, who had made a rush with every expectation that not one 
of them would live to tell of it, their fire was not even returned. 
The cowardly horsemen, in frantic confusion, turned their horses' 
heads and madly galloped away in helter-skelter fashion. Their 
dead and wounded were left upon the ground to the tender mercy o£ 
tomahawk and scalping knife. It was a spectacle most humiliating 
in all the annals of border warfare — twenty-five painted warriors 
hotly pursuing more than three hundred well-mounted and armed 
white men. 

"Never was I so much surprised in my life as I was in this 
attack," Black Hawk afterwards stated in an autobiography that 
he dictated while a prisoner in Jefferson barracks. "An army of 
three or four hundred, after having learned that we were suing for 
peace, to attempt to kill the flag-bearers that had gone unarmed to 
ask for a meeting of the war-chiefs of the two contending parties 
to hold a council, that I might return to the west side of ttie Missis- 
sippi; to come forward with a full determination to demolish the 
few braves I had with me; to retreat when they had ten to one, was 
unaccountable to me." 

It was a complete rout. The rangers were utterly panic- 
stricken. Had a handful of them made a stand at their camp in the 
woods, they could easily have repulsed their few pursuers. JNone 
of them stopped there, but madly went on towards the border settle- 
ments, scattering fear in all northern Illinois. Their exaggerated 
accounts created tremendous consternation, and the governor of the 
state energetically prepared to raise a large force of men to join tne 
regulars from Rock Island. 

The disastrous encounter with Black Hawk's band has become 
known as Stillman's defeat, from the name of the commander of the 
corps. It occurred May 14, 1832. Eleven whites were killed, tne 
Indian loss being limited to the three braves who were treacherously 
shot. Black Hawk secured much needed plunder in the deserted 



176 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



camp, and his warriors were inspired to believe that they could con- 
quer any force of whites. Guided by friendly Winnebagoes, they 
moved towards Lake Koshkonong, in the impenetrable marshes of 
which their chieftain believed himself secure from attack. Before 
proceeding thence they attacked a fort on Apple river and raided 
isolated frontier cabins, adding a number of scalps to the eleven 
secured in their first encounter. 

In the mining camps of Wisconsin the Black Hawk raid caused 
tremendous excitement. Families in exposed places hurried to the 
centers of population, and the leading spirits of the community took 
energetic measures for defense. Henry Dodge, afterwards governor 
of the territory, was one of the men who went actively to the front, 




Bad Ax, Scene of Indian Attack on Keelboats. 



urging the people to arm and gather for defensive purposes. Hoon 
the following forts, as they were called, consisting of one or more 
block -houses and stockades, had been erected and equipped: 

Fort Union — Col. Henry Dodge's residence, near Dodgeville. 

Fort Defiance — Ait the farm of Daniel M. Parkinson, live miles 
southeast of Mineral Point. 

Fort Jackson — At Mineral Point. 

Fort Hamilton— At Hamilton's lead diggings, afterwards called 
Wiota. 

Mound Fort— On a high plain a mile and a half south of the 
residence of Ebenezer Brigham at Blue Mounds. 

Parish's Fort — At the farm of Thomas J. Parish, later calleQ 
Wingville. 



TJie Stonj of the State. 177 

De Seelhorst's Fort — At the farm of Justus De Seeinorst, near 
Elk Grove. 

Stockades were also erected at Platteville, White Oak Springs, 
Old Shullsburg, Gratiot's Grove and John B. Terry's farm, Diamond 
Grove. Fort Union was headquarters, and here several hundred 
mounted volunteers assembled upon receipt of information that an 
attack upon Fort Mound was expected. The settlers in the mining 
country greatly feared that the Winnebagoes would join the aacs, 
as it was known they were disposed to aid the band that was now 
creating a reign of terror along the border. Black Hawk's plan of 
campaign was to send out detached parties to raid exposed places, 
the bands thereupon making for the marshes of Koshkonong; there 
they considered themselves safe. 

Three thousand volunteers gathered at Beardstown in response 
to the call of the govornor of Illinois. In Wisconsin, Col. Dodge was 
energetically gathering his volunteers. On the 16th of June occuiTed 
what became known as the Battle of Pecatonica. Tnough few men 
were engaged on either side, the fight was notable on account of the 
great loss of life in proportion to the number of combatants. Seven- 
teen Sacs who had massacred five men working in a cornfield were 
pursued by Dodge and twenty-eight followers. The Indians were 
overtaken on the banks of the Pecatonica, where they had sought the 
ambush of thickets and sand banks. As Dodge and his men were 
fording the river, the Indians fired a volley that killed three of the 
men and wounded another. Before they could reload, the volunteers 
were upon them. Every Indian was killed, the combat lasting but a 
few minutes. 

Arrangements were now made to join the forces from Illinois 
with those from Wisconsin, to corral Black Hawk in his lurking 
place at Koshkonong. Gen. Atkinson was in command, his force 
comprising a thousand men under Posey and Alexander; l,i;U0 under 
Col. Henry; 150 volunteers under Dodge; 450 regulars under Maj. 
Zachary Taylor. 

While plans were maturing to entrap Black Hawk at Kosh- 
konong, the chieftain and his band had quietly departed. The 
marshes and swamps of the region were inaccessible to their pur- 
suers, but were not tenable for any great length of time on account 
of the scarcity of game. In order to satisfy their hunger, the 
squaws dug roots, and finally the bark of trees was used for food. 
Black Hawk concluded that safety could not be secured east of the 
Mississippi river. Fearing that his encampment would be sur- 
rounded by the army in motion against him, he determined to reach 
the Wisconsin and proceed thence to the Mississippi. 

But for an unlooked-for mischance his plans would have suc- 
ceeded. Gen. Atkinson had dispatched Cols. Henry, Dodge and 
Alexander to Fort Winnebago to secure provisions. While returning 



178 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



they came upon the fresh trail of the fugitives leading westward 
towards the Wisconsin river. Henry and Dodge took up the pursuit 
with celerity and came upon the band at Wisconsin Heights. The 
women and children were being transported to an island in the 
river, and to cover the retreat Black Hawk and his warriors made 
a stand. Firing began at once. Rain was falling, and it was found 
impossible to follow the Indians through the wet high grass of the 
bottoms. At sunset firing ceased. 

During the night Black Hawk's people escaped. Many of their 
old men, women and children were placed on a raft and in a few 
canoes in the hope that they would be allowed to drift past the 
guns of Fort Crawford, as non-combatants, without harm, it was 
a vain hope. When the miserable squaws and their children came 
within range of the guns, a volley of bullets tore through their 
midst. Nearly a score of the Indians were killed; another score 
met death in the rapid current of the river as they sought to escape 
to the shore. Some of the fugifives reached the woods and eitner 
starved to death or fell beneath the tomahawks of a party or 
Menomonees who had allied themselves with the Americans. 

The pursuit of Black Hawk to the Mississippi, after the contlict 
at Wisconsin Heights, was resumed with redoubled vigor. The trail 
of the fleeing Indians was marked by dead bodies — victims ot 
wounds and of starvation. The night of the battle a loud voice had 
been heard from one of the hills, addressing the militia in the Win- 
nebago tongue. It was Ne-a-pope asking the Americans to accept 
the surrender of their vanquished foes and pleading the privilege oi 
being permitted to cross the Mississippi. He was not understood, 
and in despair the Sacs resumed their disheartening retreat. 

The entire army of Gen. Atkinson was in full cry close upon 
the heels of their harried prey, but not until the Sacs came to the 
Mississippi were they overtaken. Here ensued the bloodiest conflict 
of the war, in the first days of August. Below the mouth of the 
Bad Axe river, the Indians began to cross. They had but a lew 
canoes, and it promised to be a work of some time to transport the 
band across. While so engaged there came up the river the steamer 
Warrior, having on board a number of men from Fort Crawford. 
Black Hawk waved a white flag from the shore in token of sur- 
render. The only reply was a shot from the boat's six-pounder, 
and a fusilade from the small arms. The despairing Indians answered 
in kind, but the men on tne boat were amply protected. But one 
of the Americans was wounded, while more than a score of the 
Indians were killed. 

Perceiving the hopeless situation of his people. Black Hawk 
determined to seek personal safety in the wild recesses of the Wis- 
consin dalles. A few faithful companions went with him. The fallen 
chief was seized with remorse at the thought of deserting his people, 



The Stori/ of the State. 179 

and he returned to share their fate. He arrived just in time to wit- 
ness the dreadful slaughter now known as the battle of Bad Axe, 
but in reality more a massacre than a battle. The militia and regu- 
lars had reached the river long before the few canoes possessed by 
the Indians could carry more than a few of them across. The 
story is best told in the words of Black Hawk: 

"Early in the morning a party of whites, being in advance of 
the army, came upon our people, who were attempting to cross the 
Mississippi; they tried to give themselves up; the whites paid no 
attention to their entreaties, but commenced slaughtering them. 
In a little while the whole army arrived; our braves, but few in 
number, finding that the enemy paid no attention to age or sex, 
and seeing that they were murdering helpless women and little 
children, determined to fight until they were killed. As many women 
as could commenced swimming the Mississippi, with their children 
on their backs; a number of them were drowned, and some shot, 
before they could reach the opposite shore." 

On an island in the river some of the warriors, who had reached 
it by swimming, made a final stand. The cannon of the Warrior 
sent a raking fire through their midst, and a hundred and fifty 
regulars who were transported to the island in the Warrior's boats, 
finished the work with their bayonets. 

The Indian loss by drowning was doubtless greater than by 
bullets — about three hundred in all. Those who had succeeded in 
crossing the river, about three hundred, and two score women and 
children who were taken prisoners, alone survived of Black Hawk's 
people. But a few months before they had counted a thousand 
warriors, women and children. The wretched fugitives had more 
woe in store for them. Their old-time enemies, the Sioux, fell upon 
them on the western banks where they had hoped to find shelter. 
Less than half the number of those who had crossed reached the 
villages of their kinsmen. 

The wretched chieftain of the vanquished Sacs fled after wit- 
nessing the awful slaughter at Bad Axe. 

Treacherous in their instincts, the Winnebagoes proved rene- 
gades to their Sac allies when the fortune of war turned against 
them. They had secretly leagued with Black Hawk when the 
struggle began, and at one time Gen. Dodge's volunteers would have 
been ambuscaded and doubtless cut to pieces in following a Win- 
nebago guide, but for a mere accident that led fo a cnange of route. 
The Winnebagoes now hastened to prove friendly to the whites, 
and to prove it brought Black Hawk a prisoner to Prairie du Chlen. 
One-eyed Dekora and a companion named Chaetar brought the 
prisoner, who wore a dress of white-tanned deer-skins. 

The one-eyed captor addressed the general in this fashion, as he 
pointed to Black Hawk and his fellow prisoner, the evil-<minded 



180 Leading Events of Wiscotisin History. 

Prophet: "You told us to bring them to you alive; we have done 
so. If you had told us to bring their heads alone, we would have 
done so — and it would have been less difficult than what we have 
done. 

"My Father! — ^We deliver these men into your hands. We want 
you to keep them safe. If they are to be hurt, we do not wish to 
see it. Wait until we are gone before it is done. 

"My Father! — Many little birds have been flying about our ears 
of late and we thought they whispered to us that there was evil 
intended for us; but now we hope these evil birds will let our ears 
alone." 

Chaetar was more to the point. He said: 

"My Father! — Soldiers sometimes stick the end of their guns 
(bayonets) into the backs of Indian prisoners. I hope this will not 
be done to these men." 

Maj. Zachary Taylor responded with assurances to relieve tneir 
minds: 

"My Children! — I will keep them safe and will do them no harm. 
I will deliver them to the great chief of the warriors, and he will do 
with them and use them in such manner as shall be oi'dered by your 
Great Father, the president." 

Black Hawk was taken to Jefferson barracks, and then on a 
tour of the East, to impress him with the futility of Indian resist- 
ance to the power of the whites. Finally he was turned over to the 
custody of his hated rival Keokuk. He felt the humiliation keenly, 
hut the feathers of his wings had been plucked; the Hawk flew no 
more. 

The Black Hawk war was notable on account of the many 
noted men who took part in the events, among them Abraham L,in- 
coln, who served as a "private horseman" in a company of rangers; 
Zachary Taylor, in command of the regulars; Lieut. Jefferson Davis, 
afterwards president of the Southern confederacy; Charles Dunn, 
who afterwards became chief justice of the territorial Supreme 
court; William S. Hamilton, son of Washington's famous secretary 
of the treasury; Henry Dodge, first governor of Wisconsin territory, 
and first United States senator from the state; Henry Gratiot, one of 
the prominent pioneers of Wisconsin. 



CHAPTER VHI. 

IN THE DAYS OF THE TERRITORY. 

Long caravans of prairie schooners made tlie Wisconsin country 
their destination soon after tlie Black Hawk war. Tliat struggle 
had advertised its fertile prairies and valleys in the East, and intend- 
ing settlers eagerly purchased the thousands of guide books and 
pamphlets printed by enterprising publishers, purporting to describe 
the natural attractions of the Western territory. The march of the 
volunteers across the region beginning at Koshkonong and terminat- 
ing at the mouth of the Bad Axe on the Mississippi had disclosed the 
productive richness and sylvan attractiveness of Wisconsin, and 
hardy immigrants from New England and New York soon arrived in 
great numbers. 

Many of the soldiers in the Black Hawk war were sons of 
farmers, and as they crossed the state in the chase after the Hac 
warriors they mentally staked out farms in the fertile valleys ana 
uplands. Previous to this time it had been the general impression 
that Wisconsin was a mere maze of morasses — another Great Dismal 
Swamp. Long before, it had been planned to convert Wisconsin 
into a great Indian territory. As early as 1822 a contingent ot 
Brothertown and Oneida Indians were transported hither from New 
York. There was even a plan to found a great Indian empire, but 
the man who conceived it, Eleazer Williams, was an erratic indi- 
vidual and his scheme came to naught. 

The immigration from the East was the second great influx ot 
inhabitants; the first had been attracted to the mining camps ot 
Southwestern Wisconsin — men from Virginia and Kentucky and 
Tennessee. The second migration scattered agricultural com- 
munities in the southeastern part of Wisconsin, and along the lake 
shore. The third comers did not begin to arrive till nearly a decade 
later, when hardy Swiss and Germans, Scandinavians, Belgians and 
Dutch sought in this part of the new world homes for themselves 
and their children. These became the three elements whose distinot- 
ive impress remains at this day; French influences vanished long 
ago, and survive only in the names borne by some of the streams 
and towns. 

Previous to the year 1836, Wisconsin had been a neglected sec- 
tion, successively, of the territories of the Northwest, Indiana, Illi- 
nois and Michigan. As early as 1824, Judge James Duane Doty, who 
represented the judicial authority of Michigan territory in the 
region west of the lake, had begun an agitation to secure separate 
territorial government for Wisconsin. He addressed a petition to 
Senator Thomas H. Benton of Missouri, urging congressional action. 

LSI 



182 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



He represented that the seat of government (Detroit), being six 
hundred miles distant, totally inaccessible during the winter season 
and nearly so by land at all periods of the year, the people regarded 
it as little more than the capitol of a foreign government; that 
their votes for representatives could not be forvi^arded in time to 
be counted; that this being the home of some of the most numerous 




Territorial Seal. 




Territorial Seal. 



and warlike nations of Indians within the United States, the people 
ought to have better facilities for protection, etc., etc. Judge Doty 
proposed to call the territory Chippewau. and included in the 
boundaries which he suggested the northern peninsula of Michigan, 
and large sections of the present states of Illinois and Minnesota. 
He gave this interesting summary of the settlements then scattered 



The Story of the State. 183 

over this territory, all but two of them begun while the country 
was under the dominion of France: 

Pauwayteeg, or the Sault de Ste. Marie, is situated north of Detroit, which 
is the seat of government of Michigan, and the distance between them is 400 
miles. 

Mackinaw island is 90 miles from the Sault. 

Pointe Ste. Ignace, the site of the Jesuit's establishment in 1678, is three 
miles from Mackinaw. 

Mouth of the Munnomonee river is ISO miles from la Pointe Ste. Ignace 
(Maca). 

Green Bay Settlement, at the mouth of the Fox river, is 60 miles from 
Munnomonee river, and 600 from Detroit. This settlement is six miles square. 

Milwaukee is 90 miles from Green Bay. 

Grand Kaukaunnah is 18 miles from Green Bay. 

La Butte des Mortes is 70 miles from Green Bay. 

Portage, from the Pox river to the Mississippi river. Is -220 miles from 
Green Bay. This is a portage one mile and a quarter. 

Prairie du Chien, or Mindoty, on the Mississippi near the mouth of the 
Wiskonsin, is ISO miles from the portage — 100 from Green Bay and 940 from 
Detroit. It is the seat of justice for Crawford county. It is 9 miles long and 
2 broad. By a cession made to Gen'l Pike in 1S05, the U. S. have a right to 
claim 9 or 10 miles square at the mouth of the Wiskonsin. 

Galena, on Fever river. Is 90 miles from Prairie du Chien. 

St. Peters is 300 miles above Prairie du Chien and 7 below the falls of St. 
Anthony. 

Pembinau is on the Red river near the 49° of latitude. 

To these may be added the permanent trading establishments on Lake 
Superior of The Bay, Montreal island and Fond du Lac; and of Lac du Flam- 
beau, Lake St. Croix, Sandy Lake and Leech Lake in the interior. 

Judge Doty's estimate of the population within these settlements 
was "between six and seven thousand souls." 

Despite the earnestness with which Judge Doty pressed his 
territorial hobby, it was not until twelve years after he began the 
agitation that the enabling act passed congress. During this long 
period of agitation, various names were suggested for the proposed 
territory, among them Chippewau, Huron, Superior and Wiskonsan. 
Judge Doty was partial to the last-mentioned rendering of the 
euphonious French Ouisconsin; it was not till 1845 that the legis- 
lature decided the official spelling of it as W-i-s-c-o-n-s-i-n. 

It is probable that Wisconsin would have had to wait longer 
before donning long clothes had not Michigan at this time (1836) 
had statehood conferred upon it. This left a large section of coun- 
try west of Lake Michigan unorganized, and so what is now Wis- 
consin, Iowa, Minnesota and a part of Dakota was put into one 
territorial lump and called Wisconsin. 

The governmental history of Wisconsin up to this time em- 
braces one hundred and sixty-six years, during which the French 
were in control ninety years; the English thirty-six, and the 
Americans forty — at least nominally. During all but a quarter of 
a century of this period, the seat of government was so remote 
that this distant province was practically under no civil juris- 
diction, although at times military rule prevailed in the centers of 



184 Leading Events of Wiseoii>iin History. 

population. From the year 1671, when St. Lusson with spectacular 
pomp took possession of the Wisconsin region, till in 1660 the fleur- 
de-lis was lowered in the forest stockades, twelve French governors 
had exercised jurisdiction: 

1. Daniel de Remy de Courcelle (Knight), 1671-1672. 

2. Louis de Buade, Count de Paluan and de Frontenac, 1672-1682, and 
again 16S9-1698. 

3. La Febvre de la Barre, 1682-1685. 

4. Jacques Rene de Brisay, Marquis de Denonville, 1685-1689. 

5. Louis Hector de Calliere (Knight), 1699-1703. 

6. Phillip de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil, 1703-1725. 

7. Charles le Moyne, Baron de Longueuil, 1725-1726, and again in 1752. 

8. Charles Marquis de Beauharnois, 1726-1747. 

9. Rolland Michel Barrin, Count de la Galissoniere, 1747-1749. 

10. Jacques Pierre de Taffanel, Marquis de la Jonquiere, 1749-1752. 

11. Marquis Duquesne de Menneville, 1752-1755. 

12. Pierre Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavegnal, 1755-1760. 

From the occupancy by the British of the tumble-down Fort 
St. Francis at Green Bay, rechristened Fort Edward Augustus by 
them, till Jay's treaty compelled British evacuation in 1796, the 
governors of this region followed each other every few years in this 
order: 

1. Gen. Jeffrey Amheret, 1760-1763. 

2. Gen. James Murray, 1763-1766. 

3. Palius Emeline Irvine (three months), 1766. 

4. Guy Carlton (lieutenant-governor), 1766-1770. 

5. Hector T. Cramahe (president council), 1770-1774. 

6. Guy Carlton, 1774-1778. 

7. Gen. Frederick Haldimand (lieutenant-governor), 1778-1784. 

8. Henry Hamilton (lieutenant-governor), 1784. 

9. Henry Hope (president council), 17S5. 

10. Guy Carlton, Lord Dorchester, 1785-1792. 

11. John Graves Simcoe (lieutenant-governor), 1792-1796. 

The evacuation of this region left an immense territory to be 
governed by the United States as a national domain. Under the 
celebrated ordinance of 1787, provision was made for its govern- 
ment. Though constructively under the jurisdiction of American 
governors, what is now Wisconsin was actually ruled (if it could 
be said to have been governed at all) by foreign officers till 1796. 
In fact, until some time after the war of 1812, the scattered inhab- 
itants of Wisconsin did not know, and doubtless did not care, 
under what governmental jurisdiction they were. At Green Bay and 
Prairie du Chien two pompous functionaries claimed to hold com- 
missions as justices of the peace; this was the extent of government 
representation for many years. It would doubtless have puzzled 
even these commissioners of the law had they been asked to tell 
the name of the governor. Until given separate territorial rights, 
Wisconsin was an orphan in the neglectful charge, first of the 
Northwest territory, then of the territories of Indiana, Illinois and 
Michigan. These were the American territorial governors: 



The Story of the State. 185 

1. Arthur St. Clair, Northwest territory, 1787-1800. 

2. William Henry Harrison, Indiana territory, 1800-1809. 

3. Ninian Edwards, Illinois territory, 1809-1818. 

4. Lewis Cass, Michigan territory, 1818-1831. 

5. George B. Porter, Michigan territory, 1831-1834. 

6. Stevens T. Mason, Michigan territory, 1834-1836. 

7. Henry Dodge, Wisconsin territory, 1836-1841. 

8. James Duane Doty, Wisconsin territory, 1841-1844. 

9. Nathanial P. Tallmadge, Wisconsin territory, 1844-1845. 
10. Henry Dodge, Wisconsin territory, 1845-1848. 

Congress passed the act creating the territory of Wisconsin 
April 20, 1836, to take effect July 3 of the same year. Andrew Jack- 
son was president of the United States, and he commissioned 
Henry Dodge, who was a Democrat, as the first governor of the new 
territory; Charles Dunn as chief justice, and William C. Frazer and 
David Irvin as associates. George W. Jones was elected con- 
gressional delegate, and a legislature was chosen consisting of 
thirteen members of the council and twice that number of repre- 
sentatives. Their first session was held at Belmont, in Iowa county, 
beginning Oct. 25. 

The session of the legislature attracted to the little cluster of 
houses known as Belmont all the politicians of the territory. The 
total population of the territory at this time, including Iowa, was 
but 22,218; there were important matters to be determined, however, 
and the interest in the session was great. At this time not a rail 
had been laid in the territory; instead of riding to the capitol in a 
parlor car, with a bundle of passes in his pocket, the legislator 
came on horseback, or ii?. any sort of conveyance most convenient. 
It was a picturesque crowd of men, and some of the speeches that 
were made were picturesque too, judging from a specimen that has 
been preserved: 

"Mr. Chairman: I have waited patiently till the doctors and 
lawyers got through, to make a speech on the location of the seat 
of government. I was raised in the wiles of Ellinois, and 'ust to 
wear a leather huntin' shirt and sleep under a buffalo rug. I war 
edicated in the woods. The yearly part of my life was spent in 
trackin' Ingens; but it is harder tracken these gentlemen. We have 
envited the gentlemen to come up to the troft and argy the question 
on its merits, but as the Yankee said, they squerm and won't come 
up to the rack." 

Naturally, the legislation of greatest interest at the first session 
was the location of the territorial capitol. Land boomers were on 
hand with attractive plats of cities that existed on paper only, urging 
the selection of their townsites. A great scramble by rival towns 
ensued, and local feeling was wrought up to a great pitch of excite- 
ment. A list of the rival claimants included Belmont, Belleview, 
Cassville, Dubuque, Fond du Lac, Green Bay, Helena, Madison, 
Mineral Point, Milwaukee, Koshkonong, Racine, Wisconsin City, 



186 



Leading Events of Wiscon-siii History. 



Portage, Wisconsinapolis, Peru and Prairie du Chien. The points 
that were pushed most vigorously were Madison, Belmont, Fond du 
Lac and Cassville. 

By a vote of 7 to 6 the council determined upon Madison as 
the seat of government after a long and exciting struggle, and the 
house of representatives ratified the choice by a vote of 16 to 10. 
Ugly rumors were in circulation as to the arguments that proved 
most potent in the selection of the capitol. 

"On the adjournment of the legislature," says a contemporary 
account, "quite a number of gentlemen — I never learned how many 




imadison in 1836. 

Showing the Log Cabin In Which Vinnie Ream, Sculptress, Is Said to Have 

Been Born. 



—belonging to that body, went to their homes the owners of sundry 
corner lots in a new town, and the seat of government of Wisconsin 
was permanently located at Madison." 

It was the influence of James Duane Doty that located the 
capitol in the virgin forest between Lakes Mendota and Monona. 
He controlled about a thousand acres purchased by himself and the 
governor of Michigan, and he determined that this place should be 
selected for the capital of the state. Accordingly he hired a 
surveyor to accompany him, and they made the trip from Green 
Bay on horseback. The surveyor carried his compass and chain, 
and Doty a green blanket and a shotgun. The shotgun was an 
important part of the outfit, for upon it the two travelers depended 
for their forage. On the site of the future city they found a little 



The Storu of the State. 187 

log cabin. From this nucleus the surveyor drew plans that dazzled 
the legislators with the magnificence of the future city for which 
they voted. 

No sooner had Madison been decided upon as the location of the 
capitol than the owners of the site started a boom that was intended 
to speedily build a city there. Elaborately engraved plans showing 
houses and costly public edifices were shown on these plans, and 
descriptions were given of seven cities located near each other in the 
region of the Four Lakes. Madison City was represented to be the 
metropolis; adjacent was the City of the Four Lakes; a short distance 
beyond and near each other, the maps and plans located the cities 
of North Madison, East Madison, West Madison, South Madison, 
City of the First Lake and City of the Second Lake. There was a 
splendid engraved plan of each of these cities, with all its "squares, 
streets, institutions and temples." 

Travelers who were attracted to the Four Lakes by these allur- 
ing pictures were greatly astonished to learn that these seven cities 
had shrunk by the time of their arrival to one small log cabin in the 
woods. 

"This was Madison City," says the amusing account of one of 
these travelers who sought to find the seven cities and found a 
hastily patched-up log hut consisting of one room about twelve feet 
square. "Humble as it was. It concentrated within itself all the 
urban importance of the seven cities we had come so far to admire, 
and to which — according to our engraved plans — Ninevah of old, 
Thebes with its hundred gates, and Persepolis were but baby-houses. 
Not another dwelling was there in the whole country, and this 
wretched contrivance had only been put up within the last four 
weeks." 

During the twelve years of Wisconsin's territorial era, the 
chief incidents were as follows: 

1836— Seventh territorial legislature of Michigan met at Green Bay for the 
first and only time, and memorialized congress to form a separate territory west 
of Lake Michigan. The territory of Wisconsin established to take effect July 3: 
Henry Dodge, governor; Charles Dunn, chief justice; John S. Horner, secretary. 
Meeting of first legislative assembly at Belmont. Gold excitement at Kevi^aunee. 
First school in Milwaukee opened. Publication of Milwaukee Advertiser begun. 
Land office established in Milwaukee. Three banks incorporated, one at Mil- 
waukee, one at Dubuque and one at Mineral Point, all of which subsequently 
became bankrupt. Four million acres of land ceded by the Menomonee Indians 
by treaty. 

1837 — Five Dostoffices established: at Chase's Point, Moundville, Madison, 
Elk Grove and Cassville, and one during the summer at Watertown. Laying of 
ihe capitol corner stone at Madison in July. Second legislative session held at 
Burlington (now Iowa). Nov. 6. Milwaukee and Rock River Canal company in- 
corporated. Imprisonment for debt abolished. 

1838 — Census taken, showing population of 18,149 in that part of Wisconsin 
east of the Missisippi river. James Duane Doty elected delegate to congress, 
defeating George W. Jones and Thomas P. Burnett. State bank incorporated. 
Legislature met in IMadison for the first time. Congressional appropriation for a 



188 Leading Events of M'isconsUi Uistbry. 

railroad survey from Milwaukee to Prairie du Chien. Eighty postoffices in oper- 
ation in the territory (twenty-seven have since been discontinued or have different 
names.) 

1839 — Doty reelected delegate to congress, defeating Byron Kilbourn and 
Thomas P. Burnett. Great Indian battle in Northern Wisconsin between Sioux 
and Objibwas, 200 being killed. Fire and Marine Insurance company's bank 
(Alexander Mitchell's) opened in Milwaukee. First political state convention 
(Democratic) held at Madison, in June. 

1840 — A population of 30,747 shown by the federal census. First divorce 
granted by the legislature. First brew of beer at Milwaukee. "Bridge war" at 
Milwaukee. 

1841— Gov. Dodge removed from office by President John Tyler, and James 
Duane Doty appointed in his place. Bank of Mineral Point robbed by its officers, 
and about $200,000 loss sustained by depositors. Whig state convention held at 
Madison, in February, for organization. Henry Dodge, Democrat, elected as a 
delegate to congress, defeating Jonathan E. Arnold, Whig. 

1842 — During a debate in the legislature James R. "Vineyard shot Charles C. 
P. Arndt dead; tried for manslaughter and acquitted. Another census taken, 
showing a population of 46.678. Gov. Doty refused to recognize the legislature, 
an(J congress appealed to. Proclamation of Gov. Doty asking for a vote on "the 
formation of a permanent government for the state of Wiskonsan"; for, 619; 
against, 1,843. Divorces refused for the first time in the history of Wisconsin 
legislation. 

1843 — Henry Dodge elected to congress as a Democrat, defeating George W. 
Hickox, Whig candidate. Congress requested by the legislature to remove Gov. 
Doty for refusing to recognize them. 

1844 — Nathaniel Tallmadge appointed governor in place of Doty. The Wis- 
consin Phalanx (a commune) established near the site of the city of Ripon 
(Ceresco Valley). Unsuccessful attempt in the legislature to restrict negro suf- 
frage. Belligerent nullification resolutions adopted and sent to congress, on ac- 
count of boundary disputes. 

1845 — Henry Dodge again appointed governor. Resolution adopted by the 
legislature that th'e name of the territory should be spelled "Wisconsin." Mor- 
gan L. Martin elected delegate to congress, defeating James Collins, Whig, and 
Edward D. Holton, Anti-Slavery candidate. Mormon colony at Voree in Wal- 
worth county established by James Jesse Strang. 

1846— Vote taken in April to form a state government, and the proposition 
carried by a large majority. A census taken showing a population of 155,217. 
Constitutional convention held. Congress authorized a state government, Auguft, 
Conflict between whites and Indians at Muscoda; four Indians shot. Enlistment 
of Wisconsin men in Illinois companies for the Mexican war. 

1847— Constitution submitted to the people and rejected. Second constitu 
tional convention. A population of 210,546 shown by census. Milwaukee & Wau- 
kesha Railroad company chartered (first in Wisconsin). 

1848— Constitution ratified by a majority of 10,000. Wisconsin admitted to 
statehood. May 29. 

Some of the episodes that occurred during Wisconsin's terri- 
torial history excited great interest outside the immediate locality, 
among them: The founding of a Mormon stake of Zion at Voree; 
the establishment of the Wisconsin Phalanx at Ceresco — a sort of 
Brook Farm experiment; the adoption of resolutions by the legis- 
lature declaring that if congress did not restore Wisconsin the 
boundaries guaranteed by the organic act governing the Northwest, 
it would become "a state outside the Union." 



CHAPTER IX. 

A MODERN UTOPIA. 

Out of a literary society's debate in the young village of South- 
port (now Kenosha) grew an interesting experiment in communism, 
that flourished for five years in Wisconsin. About the year 1843 a 
wave of what was called Fourierism swept over the country. Men 
of keen intellect were attracted by the Utopian plan of speculative 
writers who urged the formation of communities where perfect 
democracy would prevail. Horace Greeley's Tribune took up the 
attempt to "spiritualize washtubs and to put the pitchfork in the 
hand of philosophy." Among those who read the articles were a 
number of New England and New York pioneers who had made 
their home in Southport. They were people of intelligence and of 
thrifty character. The question was discussed at a meeting of the 
Franklin lyceum, whose membership included Charles Durkee, the 
first Free-Soil member of the United States senate; Louis P. Harvey, 
one of Wisconsin's war governors; Warren Chase, a conspicuous 
character in the early politics of the state; Lester Rounds, and many 
others who became well known in the subsequent history of the 
state. 

"Does the system of Fourier present a practical plan for such a 
reorganization of society as will guard against our social evils? ' 
was the topic of debate at a meeting of the Lyceum held one 
evening in November, 1843. 

Fourier was a Frenchman who had conceived a scheme for 
dividing mankind into groups, destined eventually to come under a 
unitary government with but one language, and one system. BaCh 
association, or phalanstery, according to his plan, was to comprise 
400 families, or 1,800 persons, which number he had figured out 
included the entire circle of human capacities. "These should live 
in one immense edifice, in the center of a large and highly cultivated 
domain, and furnished with workshops, studios and all the appli- 
ances of industry and art, as well as all the sources of amusement 
and pleasure." 

The plan of Fourier contemplated this division of resources and 
product: Five parts to labor, four to capital and three to talent. 

This, in brief, was the Utopian scheme that appealed to the 
good people of Southport the beginning of the year 1844. A few 
leading men drew up a plan of organization, styled the association 
"The Wisconsin Phalanx" and found no difficulty in disposing of a 
large number of shares at $25 each. Ebenezer Childs of Green Bay 
was employed to select a spot suitable for the home of the Phalanx, 
and he recommended to the visionaries the purchase of a tract of 



190 



LcadiiKj Events of Wisconsin Eisiory. 



land in the valley of Ceresco. It seemed as if this place had been 
designed especially for such a community. Its sylvan attractiveness 
appealed to the artistic sense and love of nature, its fertile soil gave 
promise of splendid harvests, its water facilities and timbered hills 
invited the erection of mills and factories. 

With the sum of $800 ensconced in a wallet, "Warren Chase went 
to Green Bay and entered several quarter sections of the lands in the 
snug valley of Ceresco. 

In the meantime the Southport communists had been actively 
preparing to go to the land of promise. Tents had been secured, 
and provided with provisions, tools and cattle, the vanguard 
left Southport one Monday morning, with a parting cheer from 




Ruins of the Phalanx Long House at Ripon. 
From a Recent Photograph. 



their comrades. One Saturday evening the twenty persons who 
formed this advance guard — nineteen men and one boy — came to 
the banks of Silver creek and pitched their tents. They were on 
the site of the future city of Ripon. The next morning was Sunday, 
May 27, 1844, a date memorable in the annals of the Phalanx, for on 
this day they entered the valley destined to become their home. 

The season was well advanced, and early the next morning the 
pioneers of the new idea energetically began their settlement. While 
some of them broke ground for planting, others dug cellars and 
reared the skeletons of frame dwellings for housing the families 
thait were soon to come. A frost destroyed their growing vegetables, 
but undaunted they replanted corn and potatoes, beans, buckwheat 
and turnips. In their three tents they made shift to sleep with as 



The Story of the State. 191 

much comfort as beds on the ground would permit, and they ate in 
the open air the meals cooked for them by an old Scotch sailor. 
The rough boards on which the viands were served was beneath 
the shade of spreading branches, and answered well enough for the 
purpose except when it rained; but they cheerfully accustomed 
themselves to eat in a standing position when it rained, because 
"they could thus shed the rain easier." 

The stars and stripes fluttered from a high liberty pole on the 
Fourth of July, and the little community celebrated the .day with 
much enthusiasm. By this time about twenty families were occupy- 
ing the half-finished houses. They ate at a common table, the base- 
ment of one of the liouses serving for kitchen and dining hall. 
A sawmill was constructed on the bank of Silver creek, and a dam 
was thrown across the stream, but winter set in before the mill 
could be operated. The oak boards for their houses and the 
shingles for the roof had all been made by hand. 

While the members of the Phalanx were shivering in their 
winter-bound valley homes, their leader was in Madison lobbying 
for a charter. The territorial legislators were somewhat nonplussed 
at being asked to grant a charter of such an unusual sort, but 
finally granted it, substantially as the Phalanx had agreed. These 
were the salient features: 

Property to be held in stock, numbered in shares of $25 each. 

Quantity of land limited to forty acres for each person belonging 
to the corporation. 

No person permitted to join except by unanimous vote of the 
Board of Managers (president, vice-president and nine council-men). 

Annual settlements of profits made on the following basis: 
One-fourth credited as dividend for stock; remaining three-fourths 
credited to labor. 

Free public schools to be maintained nine months of the year, 
capital paying three-fourths of the cost, and labor one-fourth. 

Toleration of religious opinion, no member to be taxed, unless 
voluntarily, for the support of any minister of religion. 

Protected by a charter, the Phalanx proceeded to exemplify the 
principles of Fourier. The "long house" was constructed, described 
as being 400 feet in length and consisting of "two rows of tenements, 
with a hall between, under one roof." This was the common dining 
hall, the place of amusement and the seat of culture. The families 
took their meals at the common table, but retired to their individual 
cabins when they pleased. Board at the phalanstery was reduced in 
cost to 63 cents per week. The "class of usefulness" was divided 
into three groups— agricultural, mechanical and educational. These 
were subdivided as necessity or convenience dictated. All labor was 
voluntary, but of course credit was given to each in proportion to 
actual work accomplished. An exact account of labor was kept. 



192 Lcadliuj Events of Wisconsin History. 



There was a weekly programme for dividing the evenings between 
business and recreation: 

Monday evening — Business of the council. 

Tuesday evening — Meeting of the Philolathian society, with dis- 
cussion on current topics, and reading of "The Gleaner." 

Wednesday evening — Singing. 

Thursday evening — Dancing. 

Friday — No meeting. 

Saturday evening — Hearing of detailed reports from the foremen. 

"The Gleaner" was a paper, bearing this motto: "Let the 
gleaner go forth and glean and gather up the fragments, that noth- 
ing be lost." 

Enthusiasm and industry brought great prosperity — for awhile. 
Applications for membership poured in, but few were admitted. 
By the close of the second season thirty families were enrolled, and 
the property of the Phalanx was valued at $27,725.02. One hundred 
acres of wheat had been harvested, besides sixty of corn, fifty-seven 
of oats and other crops in proportion. Ceresco had been well named; 
Ceres, patroness of agriculture, smiled upon her own. The appraisal 
the year following gave a valuation of $32,564.18, and net profit of 
the year was $9,029.73. This gave a dividend to stock of 7% per cent, 
and of 7.3 cents per hour to labor. 

"There was a faithful attempt to carry out the complicated plan 
of Fourier with regard to the personal credits and the equalization 
of labor by reducing all to what was called the class of usefulness," 
says an account by Everett Chamberlain. "Under this arrangement, 
some of the more skillful workmen were able to score as many as 
twenty-five hours' labor in one day — a paradox in time-keeping 
which was exceedingly amusing to the skillful ones, and correspond- 
ingly perplexing to the unskillful, since everybody drew stock or 
cash on settlement day in proportion to his credit on the daily 
record." 

In his first annual report, the president noted that the Phalanx 
workers had performed in all one hundred and two thousand, seven 
hundred and sixty hours of labor, and found time besides to culti- 
vate vocal and instrumental music, and "our young ladies and gen- 
tlemen have occasionally engaged in cotillions, especially on wed- 
ding occasions, of which we have had three the past summer." 

While seemingly the experiment of the Phalanx was a proven 
success, the seeds of disintegration had been sown. Although the 
cost of board never exceeded 75 cents per week, the common table 
soon lost many of its diners, the families preferring to do their own 
cooking at home. The settlement of the lands adjacent awoke the 
spirit of land speculation in some of the thrifty members of the 
Phalanx; a couple of free love devotees came to the community and 
made a few converts, as did a lecturer on spiritualism. The com- 



The Story of the State. 



193 



munity also got into a tangle with the founders of Ripon, and 
the acute angles of that city's streets, with their three-cornered 
buildings yet attest the existence of this rivalry. In the end Ripon 
triumphed by using political influence and wresting the postoffice 
from Ceresco, the mail bags being carried in triumph to the newer 
settlement. There v/ere other internal troubles — a, difference of opin- 
ion as to the proper apportionment of work and emoluments. 

The end came in 1850, when authority was received from the 
legislature to disband. This was done, and nearly $40,000 was dis- 
tributed among the members. 




Gov. DoTY's Residence at Shantytown. 

(James Duane Doty was doubtless the ablest of Wisconsin's Territorial Gov- 
ernors, though by no means the most popular. He was a New Yorker and came 
West with Lewis Cass, whose secretary he was. In 1829 he made Green Bay his 
home. He was Governor of Utah Territory at the time of his death in 1865.) 

Another experiment in socialism that came to grief in Wiscon- 
sin was the Utilitarian association, located in Waukesha county. 
Its origin was in overcrowded London, where in 1843 a bookbinder 
named Campbell Smith urged the formation of communities to 
colonize tracts of land in the new world. All members were to con- 
tribute equally and live at common expense. A 200-acre farm 
located near Mukwonago was purchased, and Smith led his band 
thither in 1844. To these Londoners who had breathed the aid of 
crowded tenement houses, the idea of riding around a farm as large 
as Regent's park was inspiriting, and they came with high hopes and 
happy hearts. The community lasted about a year, and then dis- 
banded. This is the reason given by George Campbell, one of the 
communists: 

"The members were dissatisfied. There was no head to the 
concern, and everyone wanted to do as he chose. According to the 



194 Leadinc) Eccitts of Wisconsin History. 

by-laws a meeting was held every evening after supper to decide 
what work should be done the next day. They did no good. 1 
remember how Campbell Smith used to sit in his chair, smoking his 
pipe and say: 'Well, I guess we had better hoe the potatoes to- 
morrow; they need it,' and the others would sit still and never say 
a word. The result was that next morning the potatoes remained 
among the weeds. One would do this and another that. After 
awhile we realized that we couldn't farm, so we sold the tract, and 
everyone went his own way." 

Somewhat similar in scope to the Wisconsin Phalanx, though 
not as successful nor as long-lived, was the Spring Farm association. 
It had its origin in the village of Sheboygan Falls in the year 1845, 
and was a reflex of the same wave of socialism which brought into 
being the community at Ceresco. After a good deal of discussion on 
the subject of socialism, ten families agreed to try the plan of 
Fourier, and formed an association. There were differences of 
opinion at the start. Some of the members insisted on settling on 
the shore of Lake Michigan; others wanted to get away from civili- 
zation, and picked out a tract twenty miles inland. Being unable 
to reconcile their differences, the communists split. The lake shore 
association had a fitful existence and gave up the struggle. The 
Spring Farm association adopted the motto, "Union, Equal Rights 
and Social Guarantees," and planted its standard in a wooded spot 
whose springs of water gave to the community its name of Spring 
Farm association. The six families kept together for three years. 
Among them were farmers, blacksmiths and carpenters. They con- 
structed a unitary building twenty feet by thirty in dimensions, and 
comprising two stories. They had thirty acres of land under 
cultivation. 

"We dissolved by mutual agreement," one of the members 
explained in accounting for the dissolution. "We were not troubled 
with dishonest management, and generally agreed in all our affairs. 
The reasons for failure were poverty, diversity of habits and dis- 
positions, and disappointments through failure of harvest." 

Manitowoc county is at the present day the home of a com- 
munistic enterprise, started many years ago by a Catholic priest 
from Baden. It flourished for many years under his supervision, 
as he practically controlled its affairs and his people obediently fol- 
lowed his counsel in temporal as well as spiritual affairs. Since his 
death the principles of communism have been considerably modified. 

Of the numerous experiments in America on the pattern pre- 
scribed by Fourier and Owen, the Wisconsin Phalanx had the longest 
life, with but two exceptions. In material prosperity, it was 
exceeded by none. Although doubtless it was this prosperity that led 
to the break-up by introducing the spirit of cupidity among its 
members, there were other serious causes of disturbance. The joint 



The Story of the State. 195 

boarding house idea was a source of contention. There was hut a 
small majority in its favor when the decision was reached to build 
the dwellings in unitary blocks adapted to a common boarding 
house instead of in isolated style adapted to the separate family 
and single living. 

Accounts are agreed that the community table was set with 
plain but substantial food, much like the tables of farmers in newly- 
settled agricultural regions. And' yet, despite the cheapness of the 
board to the boarders, the common table was soon surrounded with 
many empty chairs. 

"There is a difference of opinion in regard to board," President 
Warren Chase wrote to The Harbinger, Jan. 8, 1848. "Most of our 
families cook their board in their rooms from choice under present 
circumstances; some because they use no meat and do not choose 
to sit at a table plentifully supplied with beef, pork and mutton; 
others because they choose to have their children sit at the table 
with them, to regulate their diet, etc., which our circumstances will 
not yet permit at our public table; others because they want to ask 
a blessing, etc.; and others because their manner of cooking and 
habits of living have become so fixed as to have sufficient influence 
to require their continuance." 



\ I CHAPTER X. 

A TRAGEDY IN THE CAPITOL. 

Much acrimonious discussion was excited during tlie session of 
the territorial legislature in 1842 by the nominations for oflfice sub- 
mitted by Gov. Doty. On the 7th of February the bitterness thus 
engendered caused one member of the council to shoot a fellow 
member dead. James R. Vineyard represented Iowa county and 
Charles C. P. Arndt was the member from Brown. They were warm 
personal friends until the scramble for office led them to take oppo- 







Wisconsin's First Capitol. 
The Old Building at Belmont, Where the Legislature Met in 1836, is Still Standing. 



site sides. The governor had sent in the name of Enos S. Baker for 
sheriff of Grant county. A bitter debate followed. Arndt made a 
sarcastic statement concerning his colleague Vineyard, and the latter 
retorted in anger that the statement was a falsehood. Order was 
restored, and a motion was made to adjourn. Before the vote could 
be announced, a confusion of voices in the neighborhood of Vine- 
yard's desk interrupted proceedings. Words in a high key were 
passed, and most of the members arose to crowd around the dis- 
putants. 

"Order! order!" called out Moses M. Strong, another member. 

■"Order ! order !" repeated the president. 

19G 



Tlie Story of the State. 197 

Amid much confusion the council adjourned. Arndt advanced 
again towards Vineyard's desk, demanding to know whether the 
latter had imputed to him falsehood in his remarks. 

"They were false," Vineyard retorted. 

Arndt struck Vineyard on the forehead. The report of a pistol 
followed, and Arndt reeled towards the fireplace. He fell into the 
arms of a fellow-memher and in five minutes was dead. 

Vineyard surrendered himself to the sheriff. His wife shared 
his incarceration in jail until his release on $10,000 bail. From his 
jail quarters. Vineyard sent his resignation to the council. It was 
not accepted; instead he was expelled by a vote of 10 to 1 and his 
seat was declared vacant. A grand jury returned a bill for man- 
slaughter. He was tried, and the jury acquitted him. The trial 
occurred in Green county. Vineyard having secured a change of 
venue from Dane on the ground of the prejudice of the people. 



CHAPTER XI. 
Strang's stake of zion at voree. 

DuRiiNG the concluding period of the territorial era, an attempt 
was made to establish a stronghold of Mormonism in Wisconsin. 
Had the plans of one James Jesse Strang been brought to fruition, 
all the followers of the Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, would have 
congregated here to found a kingdom and to "establish an inherit- 
ance forever." The scheme miscarried; in the end Strang forfeited 
his life and his deluded followers were dispersed by violence. Utah 
became the Mecca of Mormonism. 

When the Mormons were building their famous temple at Nau- 
voo, some of the workmen were sent to the forests of Wisconsin to 
hew the timbers for the structure and' raft them down the Missis- 
sippi. As they passed the prairie La Crosse, they were attracted 
by the pleasant little coulees that nestle between the green hills 
eastward of the prairie. Elder Lyman Wight led a band of Mor- 
mons thither in 1843 and planted the first Mormon stake of Zion in 
Wisconsin. The little valley still bears the name of Mormon coulee; 
its name and a few crumbling ruins of masonry are all the vestiges 
that remain of the Mormon occupation. The people of the coulee 
and the rough traders of the prairie had frequent collisions, due in 
part to the rude attentions received by the Mormon women from 
the young men of the prairie. A bloody feud threatened to break 
out; the Mormons prevented it by abandoning their homes. Rafts 
were secretly constructed, and under cover of night they floated 
down the river to Nauvoo, after applying the torch to their deserted 
homes. 

Itinerant Mormon preachers sought converts among the people 
of Burlington, Racine county, early in the year 1845. An eccentric 
young lawyer named James Jesse Strang became interested in their 
talk and embraced Mormonism with great zeal. Strang's subsequent 
career as elder, revelator, prophet, seer, and finally as king, is one 
of the strange episodes of Western history. Before coming to Wis- 
consin, Strang lived in his native state, New York. During his boy- 
hood, he was regarded as a child of odd characteristics, and as he 
grew to manhood his eccentricities became more pronounced. While 
working on a farm, he borrowed law books and industriously 
applied himself to be admitted to the bar. His disposition was too 
restless to permit him to engage long in one occupation or to 
remain long enough in one place to take root. He became a rover; 
at one place he taught country school; at another practiced law; at 
a third edited a newspaper and secured appointment as postmaster. 

198 



The Story of the State. 



199 



Finally he Ijecame a temperance lecturer, and in 1843 came to Wis- 
consin, resuming the practice of law. 

Strang went into the Mormon movement with great energy. In 
January he was converted; in February he visited Nauvoo and was 
baptized by the seer Joseph Smith into the communion of Latter 
Day Saints. The young Wisconsin convert made so favorable an 
impression on the prophet that only a week later he was made an 
elder and received authority to plant a stake of Zion in Wisconsin. 

Six months later Strang was contesting with Brigham Young 
the headship of the Mormon church. 

A mob stormed the jail at Carthage, 111., in the month of June, 
1845, and shot Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum to death. 
Before the distracted Mormons of Nauvoo had recovered their 




King Strang. 
From the Only Photograph Known to Be in Existence. 



equilibrium, Strang appeared among them urging them to follow 
him to his city of refuge in Wisconsin, which city he called 
Voree. He claimed that the slain prophet had designated him as 
successor in the office of seer, and had instructed him to build a 
temple and city in Walworth county, destined to become the strong- 
hold of Mormonism. To prove his authority he exhibited a letter 
from Joseph Smith, dated the day previous to the stormfng of the 
Carthage jail, and bearing the Nauvoo postmark. The letter was 
couched in the usual phrases that distinguish Mormon literature — 
an ungrammatical imitation of scriptural language. After a long 
preliminary statement, to the effect that "the wolves are upon the 
scent," and that the writer had listened to music low and sad, ' as 



200 Leading Events of Wif^consin History. 

though they sounded the requiem of martyred prophets," the 
prophetic succesision is thus bestowed upon Strang: 

"And now behold my servant James J. Strang hath come to 
thee from far for truth when he knew it not, and hath not rejected 
it, but hath faith in thee, the Shepherd and Stone of Israel, and to 
him shall the gathering of the people be, for he shall plant a stake 
of Zion in Wisconsin, and I will establish it; and there shall my 
people have peace and rest, and shall not be moved, for it shall be 
established on the prairie of White river, in the lands of Racine and 
Walworth; and behold my servants James and Aaron shall plant 
it, for I have given them wisdom, and Daniel shall stand in his lot 
on the hill beside the river looking down on the prairie, and shall 
Instruct my people, and shall plead with them face to face. . . . 
And I will have a house built unto me there of stone, and there will 
I show myself to my people by my mighty works, and the name 
of the city shall be called Voree, which is, being interpreted, garden 
of peace; for there shall my people have peace and rest, and wax fat 
and pleasant in the presence of their enemies." 

With Brigham Young at their head, the Council of Twelve who 
controlled the Mormon Church, raised a great clamor; denouncing 
Strang as a pretender and his letter as a forgery. Altrough Strang 
gained a considerable following, they succeeded in expelling him 
from the city of Nauvoo and consigned him "to the buffetings of 
Satan until he do repent." 

Followed by his adherents, Strang went to the banks of White 
river and began to build his city of Voree. He established a weekly 
paper, The Gospel Herald; his printing presses turned out thousands 
of tracts; for distribution by his missionaries. About this time the 
people of Illinois were preparing to expel the Nauvooites, and in 
the "First Pastoral Letter of James, the Prophet," he urged the 
refugees to hasten from destruction to his city of promise in Wis- 
consin. He drew a lurid picture of the fate that awaited the wan- 
derers of Utah: 

"Let not my call to you be vain," he wrote. "The destroyer has 
gone forth among you and has prevailed. You are preparing to 
resign country and houses and lands to him. Many of you are about 
to leave the haunts of civilization and of men to go into an unex- 
plored wilderness among savages and in trackless deserts, to seek 
a home in the wilds where the foot-print of the white man is not 
found. The voice of God has not called you to this. His promise has 
not gone before to prepare a habitation for you. The hearts of 
the Lamanites are not turned unto you, and they will not regard 
you. When the herd comes, the savages shall pursue. The cloud 
which surrounds by day shall bewilder and the pillar of fire by night 
shall consume and reveal you to the destroyer. . . . Let the 
oppressed flee for safety unto Voree, and let the gathering of the 
people be here." 



TJie Story of the State. 201 

Strang's pastoral letter did not affect the exodus from Nauvoo, 
but his words proved prophetic. Of 20,000 persons who crossed the 
Mississippi, less than half reached the wilderness of Utah. The route 
was strewn with the bleaching bones of those who fell by the way- 
side. 

The building of Voree went on with great energy. It was claimed 
by the Mormons that at one time its population numbered not less 
than 2,000 men, women and children. A great temple was planned 
and begun. Strang became known as the Prophet James, and, as 
Joseph Smith had done, professed to have visions and revelations. 
They proved exceedingly useful whenever any of his followers be- 
came discontented and threatened to create trouble. The prophet 
Joseph had, in the hill of Cumorah, in the state of New York, found 
metallic plates covered with strange characters. These he trans- 
lated, and the result was the Book of Mormon. The prophet James 
concluded that a similar performance in Wisconsin would demon- 
strate to the doubters his right to take Joseph's place. On the 13th 
day of September, 1845, he announced that in a celestial vision he 
had been shown a spot where an ancient record had been buried. 
He led four persons, Aaron Smith, Jirah B. Wheelan, James M. Van 
Nostrand and Edward Whitcomb, to an old oak tree, and told them 
10 dig till a casket containing four metal plates was found. 

"The case," they afterwards testified, "was found imbedded in 
indurated clay, so closely fitting it that it broke in taking it out, and 
the earth below the soil was so hard as to be dug with difficulty, 
even with a pickax. Over the case was found a flat stone, about one 
foot wide each way, and three inches thick, which appeared to have 
i-ndergone the action of fire, and fell in pieces a few minutes after 
exposure to the air. The digging extended in the clay about eighteen 
inches, there being two kinds of earth of a different color and ap- 
pearance above it. We examined as we dug all the way with the 
ntmost care, and we say, with the utmost confidence, that no part of 
the earth through which we dug exhibited any sign or indication 
that it had been moved of disturbed at any time previous. The roots 
of the tree struck down on every side very closely, extending below 
the case, and closely interwoven with roots from other trees. None 
of these had been broken or cut away." 

The discovery of the three metal plates attracted thousands of 
curious persons to Voree. Strang called them the "plates of Laban," 
went into a trance and furnished the following translation of the 
mystic characters which he claimed were inscribed thereon centuries 
ago: 

"1. My people are no more. The mighty are fallen and the 
young slain in battle. Their bones bleached on the plain by the 
noonday shadow. The houses are leveled to the dust, and in the 
moat are the walls. They shall be inhabited. I have in the burial 



202 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

served them, and their bones in the death shade towards the sun's 
rising are covered. They sleep with the mighty dead, and they rest 
with their fathers. They have fallen in transgression and are not, 
but the elect and faithful there shall dwell. 

"2. The word hath revealed it. God hath sworn to give an in- 
heritance to his people where transgressors perished. The word of 
God came to me while I mourned in the death shade, saying, I will 
avenge me on the destroyer. He shall be driven out. Other strangers 
shall inhabit thy land. I an ensign there will set up. The 
escaped of my people there shall dwell, when the flock disown the 
shepherd and build not on the rock. 

'•3. The forerunner men shall kill, but a mighty prophet there 
shall dwell. I will be his strength, and he shall bring forth the rec- 
ord. Record my words and bury it in the hill of promise. 

"4. The record of Rajah Manchore of Verito." 

This record of the ancient Rajah Manchore of Verito was mys- 
terious enough to awe Strang's followers and to more firmly en- 
trench his standing as a prophet. Subsequently he discovered eight- 
een additional buried plates, which he "translated." This transla- 
tion he printed in the form of a book, which he called the "Book of 
the Law of the Lord." The preface of this book, and its printed 
title, indicate what Strang claimed for it: 

BOOK OF THE LAW OF THE LORD. 
Consisting of 
An Inspired Translation of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Law Given 
to Moses, and a Very Few Additional Commandments, with 
Brief Notes and References. 
Printed by Command of the King at the Royal Press, St. James, A. R. I. 

From the preface: "Several books are also mentioned in the 
scriptures, not now found in the Bible, but of equal authority with it, 
which have been lost; as, for instance, another epistle of Paul to the 
Corinthian and the Ephesian churches, and the books of Iddo, 
Nathan and others, prophets of high rank in Israel. But of all the 
lost books the most important was the Book of the Law of the 
Lord. This was kept in the ark of the covenant, and was held too 
sacred to go into the hands of strangers. When the Septuagint trans- 
lation was made, the Book of the Law was kept back, and the book 
lost to the Jewish nation in the time that they were subject to for- 
eign powers. The various books in the Pentateuch, containing 
abstracts of some of the laws, have been read instead, until even the 
existence of the book has come to be a matter of doubt. It is from 
an authorized copy of that book, written on metallic plates long pre- 
vious io the Babylonish captivity, that this translation is made." 

After awhile Strang's ambitions expanded. He wanted temporal 
«s well as spiritual power; to be king as well as prophet. He selected 
Beaver island, in Lake Michigan, as the seat of his empire, and 



The Story of the State. 



203 



arranged to remove his faithful followers there. The first families 
went there from Voree in 1847, and in the course of a few years had 
gained considerably in numbers. The fishermen who made the 
island their home resisted the Mormon invasion bitterly, and a bor- 
der war ensued that was attended with some bloodshed. Finally the 
Mormons made themselves masters of the island and obtained con- 
trol of the county government. A Mormon sheriff could arrest a 
Oentile offender, bring him before a Mormon jury for conviction and 
tefore a Mormon judge for sentence. Strang secured his own elec- 
tion to the legislature, and was thus enabled to obtain the enact- 
men: of local laws that suited his scheme of government. 






|+-WrxpM^<;,\HT<5;i 




1 + +>^i-^ -^ ^ 



i e- 1 <^ 1 1 

I 3 t- -^ ^- ^ 



..J 



One of the Voree Plates. 



(The metallic plates dug out of a hill near Voree were three in number, the 
mysterious characters engraved thereon being very similar. Strang called them 
the "Plates of Laban.") 



The 8th of July, 1850, was set for the coronation of Strang as 
king of St. James. Four days before this the settlement narrowly 
escaped destruction. The Gentile fishermen from the opposite main- 
land and the adjacent cluster of islands had planned a strategic 
uprising designed to lead to the expulsion of the Mormons. Their 
fleets were to gather in the harbor of St. James, ostensibly to cele- 
brate the Fourth of July, out in reality for the sterner work of at- 
tacking the Mormons. Having secured information as to their pur- 
pose, Strang made preparations for giving the fishermen a hot recep- 
tion. A cannon was procured in Chicago, and the Mormons were 
armed and drilled in anticipation of the attack. When the fleets 
came into the harbor, a party of Mormon spies boarded one of the 
vessels under cover of darkness and overheard all the plans for the 
attack. They drugged a keg of whisky and departed without detec- 
tion. In the morning the Mormons began firing a national salute. 



204 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

the balls from the cannon skipping merrily over the water and going 
dangerously near the fishing smacks. A parley ensued. The Mor- 
mons gave warning that any hostile movement meant death and 
desl ruction of the entire fleet. Seeing that the Mormons were armed 
and in position to repel an attack, the fishermen became alarmed 
and sailed away without striking a blow. 

According to programme, Strang was crowned king on the 8th 
of July. The ceremonies, which were of an imposing nature, took 
place in the unfinished tabernacle of hewn logs. The king's council, 
the quorum of twelve, the quorum of seventy and the numerous 
minor orders of the ministry had their part in the pageant. 

King Strang ruled with autocratic sway. From his royal press 
he issued his commands in the form of the Book of the Law, which 
was now printed in full for the first time. The Northern Islander 
was printed as a weekly, and later as a daily newspaper. The tith- 
ing system was inaugurated and implicitly obeyed. The firstling of 
every flock and the first fruits of the field and orchard went to the 
royal storehouse. Women were required to wear bloomers. The use 
of intoxicants, tea, coffee and tobacco was prohibited. Polygamy 
was introduced, the king setting an example by increasing the num- 
ber of his -wives to five. Great improvements were planned. A 
schooner was built, a sawmill constructed and a great road to the 
interior of the island, called the King's highway, was laid out. The 
Rformons changed the nomenclature of the island's physical features 
to harmonize with the names in the Bible and the Book of Mormot 
A bill in the interior was dignified into Mount Pisgah. A crystal 
lake was called Galilee and the sti-eam whence its waters traveled 
lakeward received the name Jordan. The harbor Avas named St. 
James, and the cluster of cabins along its shore became the royal 
city of St. James, in honor of the king. 

One fine day the United States armed steamer Michigan cast 
anchor in the harbor of St. James, a boat manned by Uncle Sam's 
tars rowed to the shore and placed King Strang and the principal 
men of St. James under arrest on the charge of treason, counterfeit- 
ing the coin and interfering with the government mails. A vain 
search Avas made for a secret cave supposed to exist in Mount Pis- 
gah and believed to contain the tools of the counterfeiters, and the 
prisoners were conveyed to Detroit for trial. Strang conducted his 
own defense with much skill and made a powerful plea to the jury, 
representing himself as a martyr to religious persecution. He was 
acquitted, and returned to his insular kingdom in triumph. 

On frequent occasions the Mormons came into bloody conflict wit'h 
the Gentiles. A grand jury was called to meet at St. James, and the 
Mormon sheriff and his deputies went to Charlevoix to serve sum- 
mons on witnesses. Believing that the summons were a mere sub- 
terfuge to get them into the power of King Strang the fishermen 



The Story of the State. 



205 



resisted the authority of the sheriff. As the Mormons made for 
their boats in hot haste, a volley of bullets sped after them and 
wounded two of the men. The fishermen tumbled into their own 
boats and pursued the fleeing sheriff and his men. There ensued a 
race for life over the waters of the lake. The brawny oarsmen in 
the lear boats sent their craft through the water at a speed that 
made it impossible for the fugitives to escape to Beaver Island. The 
Mormons made for a vessel that opportunely hove in sight, as their 
only hope of escape from the shot that whistled over and around 
them. They reached it when they were almost spent, and the hu- 
mane captain gave them refuge. The angry fishermen demanded 
that the men be turned over to them, but the captain listened to the 




Strang's Castle. 



piteous pleadings of the Mormons, who knew that such a course 
meant certain death, and landed them unharmed on Beaver Island. 

While King Strang seemed in the height of his power, his reign 
was abruptly terminated by the bullets of assassins. His subjects 
were not all loyal, and two of them planned his death. Early in 
July, 1856, the Michigan steamed into the harbor, and King Strang 
prepared to pay the officers on board a visit. As he stepped on the 
dock Alexander Wentwoi'th and Thomas Bedford emerged from be- 
hind a woodpile and fired simultaneously, both shots taking effect. 
As he fell they struck him savagely with their weapons and ran 
aboard the vessesl to give themselves up. They were taken to Mack- 
inac, and after awhile secured their release. Neither of the assassins 
was ever brought to trial. 



206 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

Strang's wounds were fatal. He asked to be conveyed to his 
city of Voree, and he lingered until he reached the spot where he 
had planned to build a great city of refuge for Mormondom. A few 
days later he died, surrounded by his numerous wives. He lies in an 
unmarked grave in the prairie beside White river. 

The kingdom of St. James went to pieces. The long-delayed 
invasion of the Gentiles followed soon after Strang's death. The 
printing office was sacked; the temple was destroyed; ax and torch 
leveled a goodly portion of the royal city. The Mormons were ex- 
iled and their homes were confiscated. Some sought refuge in the 
northern counties of Wisconsin; some drifted to Utah; others wan- 
dered elsewhere; the island thereafter became the home of the fisher 
folk, and their descendants live there to-day. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE MIGRATION FROM OVER THE OCEAN. 

WiscoxsiN has been termed the polyglot state of the Union. But 
five states have a foreign-born population greater than that of Wis- 
consin, and in but one of these is the percentage as large. In .no 
state are more nationalities represented among the foreign groups 
of considerable size. 

The coming of colonists from trajns-Atlantic regions in numbers 
sufiicient to influence the history of Wisconsin began in the days of 
the territory. Before 1840 the chief elements of the population com- 
prised the non-progressive French Creoles, who hunted and bartered 
for furs; the Southern fortune seekers, who brought their negro 
slaves from Missouri and Tennessee into the lead regions; and the 
brawny and brainy New Englanders and New York men who became 
the pioneer farmers of the territory in the opposite southern zone of 
the state. Then came the forerunners of the army of Germans, 
Scandinavians and other Teutonic nations, whose coming has con- 
tinued uninterruptedly to this day, with an admixture of Celtic 
and Slavonian immigration. Many independent causes operated to 
turn this tide Wisconsinward, and at one time the thought was 
seriously entertained that a foreign state was to be founded here. 
The ideas brought hither from the Germanic countries of Europe 
have not denationalized Wisconsin, but they have profoundly 
affected its social, commercial and political life. 

Not alone in the grouping of nationalities in certain localities is 
Wisconsin peculiar, but also in the massing together of people from 
the same provinces and even towns of the old country. It indicates 
that the foreign colonization of Wisconsin was not a haphazard cir- 
cumstance; the cause was deeper than the restlessness of individ- 
uals. The people came in numbers sufficient to constitute a com- 
munity, impelled by local economic, political or religious conditions 
which they sought to escape. In the hamlets of the old world, the 
plan of migration was thoroughly discussed at public meetings and 
in private home gatherings; in many cases the leaders of the move- 
ment were sent ahead to do the pi-ospecting and report what they 
found in the new world. Thus little communities of neighbors were 
transplanted to the fertile soil of Wisconsin, and after the lapse of 
half a century many of them retain the distinctive customs they 
brought with them from the old world. Some of the towns of the 
state whose inhabitants are made up of people from particular dis- 
tricts of Germany are enumerated in a report of the State Histor- 
ical society, as follows: 

Germans— Lomira was settled almost entirely by Prussians from Branden- 
burg, who belonged to the Evangelical association. The neighboring towns of 

207 



208 



Leading Events of ^S'isconsiti History. 



Herman and Theresa, also in Dodge county, were settled principally by natives 
of Pommeranla. In Calumet county there are Oldenburg, Luxemburg and New 
Holstein settlements. St. Kilian, in Washington county, is settled by people 
from Northern Bohemia, just over the German border. The town of Belgium, 
Ozaukee county, is populated almost exclusively by Luxemburgers, while Olden- 
burgers occupy the German settlement at Cedarburg. Three-fourths of the 
population of Farmington, Washington county, are from Saxony. In the same 
county, Jackson is chiefly settled by Pommeranians, while one-half of the popula- 
tion of Kewaskura are from the same German Drovince. In Dane county there 
are several interesting groups of German Catholics. Roxbury is nine-tenths 
German, the people coming mostly from Rheinish Prussia and Bavaria. Germans 
predominate in Cross Plains, the rest of the population being Irish. The German 
families of Mlddleton came from Koln. 




Carl Schurz. 

(Carl Schurz spent the first years after his coming to America, in Water- 
town, Wis. He was candidate for Lieutenant Governor of the State while a resi- 
dent of Watertown, and sought the nomination for Governor. He was appointed 
minister to Rome and never returned to Wisconsin.) 



Scandinavians — Important Norwegian groups are the following: New Hope 
and Amherst in Portage county; Oilman, Martel, Ellsworth and Hartland in 
Pierce county; seven townships in the western part of Waupaca county; Mt. 
Morris in Waushara county; Winchester and one-half of Clayton in Winnebago 
county; Christiana in Lafayette county; Coon in Vernon county. Swedes pre- 
dominate in Trenton, Isabel and Maiden Rock in Pierce county. Icelanders 
practically monopolize Washington island in the waters of Green Bay. There 
are large Norwegian settlements in Dane county. 

Polanders— The Fourteenth ward of Milwaukee is almost solidly occupied 
by Polanders, and they predominate in three other wards. Poles from Posen 
occupy a quarter of Beaver Dam. A colony of Poles from Danzig make Berlin 



Tlw Story of the State. 209 

their home. There is also a Polish group in Stevens Point. Other solid Polish 
groups are found in the townships of Berlin, Seneca and Princeton. Warren 
township, in Waushara county, has a considerable colony of Poles. 

Swiss — Between 5,000 and 6,000 Swiss are massed in exceptionally prosperous 
colonies In New Glarus, Washington, Exeter, Mt. Pleasant, York and neighboring 
townships In Green county. Others may be found in the counties of Buffalo, 
Pierce (Union), Winnebago (Black Wolf), and Fond du Lac (Ashford). 

Irish— Irish groups are found in Bear Creek, Winfield and Dellona in Sauk 
county; Osceola, Eden and Byron in Fond du Lac county; Benton, Darlington, 
Gratiot, Kendall, Seymour, Shullsburg, and Willow Spring in Lafayette county; 
Lebanon in Waupaca county; Erin in Washington county; Emmet, Shields and 
Portland in Dodge county. 

Welsh— In Waushara county the town of Springwater, one-half of the town 
of Rose and one-half of Aurora are occupied by natives of Wales and their 
Immediate descendants. Spring Green, in Lake county, has a large colony of 
them. The whole of Nekemi, the greater part of Utica, Caledonia and Calamus 
are Welsh neighborhoods and likewise the Third and Sixth wards of the city of 
Racine. 

There are also large groups of Bohemians, Belgians, Finlanders, 
French-Canadians as well as English and Scotch settlements, scat- 
tered about the state. 

"When Milwaukee was but a small cluster of houses in the early 
30's, Germans had made their home in the village, but it was not 
until a decade later that colonists began to arrive in considerable 
numbers from the fatherland. Political disturbances at home sent 
many of them over the ocean, and the low price of land and liberal 
laws of "Wisconsin attracted many of them to this territory. At one 
time there was considerable agitation both in this country and in 
Germany with a view to such concentration of German settlement 
and influence as to Germanize one of the states of the Union. "Wis- 
consin was by common consent regarded as the ideal place for car- 
rying this plan into effect. "Whether this agitation contributed 
materially to swing the German emigration to Wisconsin is doubt- 
ful except to the extent that the discussion of the project served to 
advertise conspicuously the natural advantages of the territory. 

"Germans can remain Germans in America," one enthusiastic 
promoter of the German-American state idea wrote in 1847. "They 
will mingle and intermarry with non-Germans and adopt their 
ways, but they can still remain essentially German. They can 
plant the vine on the hills and drink it with happy song and dance; 
they can have German schools and universities, German literature 
and art, German science and philosophy, German courts and assem- 
blies — in short, they can form a German state, in which the German 
language is as much the popular and official language as the English 
is now, and in which the German spirit rules." 

Between the years 1840 and 1848 pamphlets and books describ- 
ing the resources and favorable climatic conditions of "Wisconsin 
were circulated in great number in some parts of Germany, and 
undoubtedly greatly influenced intending settlers to seek the golden 
Northwest. In the Rhine region, in the "Wupper valley and in the 



210 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

duchy of Brunswick these guides for emigrants found especially 
eager readers. Milwaukee soon became known as the German 
Athens of America, but the German population of Wisconsin was not 
confined to the chief city of the territory. The wooded sections 
along the lake shore and in the interior attracted large numbers of 
the homeseekers. The early German settlers were mostly of the 
Catholic faith, but in the early 40's Pommerania and Brandenburg, 
as the result of religious contentions, lost many of their people, and 
their leaders directed many of them to Wisconsin. They settled in 
Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Dodge and Washington counties. Evei-ywhere 
the Germans sought to win homes in the woods rather than on the 
prairies. 



James G. Percival, Poet. 

(During Wisconsin's early days of Statehood, James G. Percival served as 
State geologist. Mr. Percival was a poet and scientist of national reputation. He 
was a strange character, wholly given over to Intellectual pursuits and shunning 
all intercourse with his fellow men where it was at all avoidable. He was eccen- 
tric in dress; his house had but one entrance, and that was in the rear. He was 
never known to speak to a woman, and in many ways exhibited odd charac- 
teristics.) 



In the central counties of the state the Germans who penetrated 
and formed colonies were mostly from Pommerania, Mecklenburg, 
Holstein and other provinces of middle and North Germany. In 
the western part of the state, also, large German settlements were 
begun. The Sauk county German settlements owe their origin to a 
curious accident. Count Augustus Haraszthy, a Hungarian refugee, 
chanced upon a novel aboard the vessel that carried him to Amer- 
ica. Becoming interested in a description therein given of a trip 
from Green Bay to Prairie du Chien, he concluded to visit the 



The Stori/ of the State. 211 

region. He induced a number of Germans to join him and founded 
the village of Sauk. 

Norwegians attach the same associations to the name Restau- 
rationen as do the New Englanders to the Mayflower. Aboard the 
little sloop Restaurationen, which left the ancient city of Stavanger, 
on the southwest coast of Norway, in 1825, were a few Quaker fam- 
ilies seeking escape from religious persecution. They left on the 
fourth day of July, and had a perilous and adventurous journey 
lasting fourteen weeks. The arrival of the little shell amazed the 
people of New York, who mai-veled that fifty-two persons would 
venture on such a voyage in so small a craft. 

Soon letters found their way to the Scandinavian peninsula, 
descriptive of the fertile lands in the new world, to be had for the 
asking. These letters were passed from house to house and were 
read with great interest. Emigration began to be discussed and 
plans formulated for crossing the ocean. When one of the wan- 
derers returned to his home to seek a wife, people traveled hundreds 
of miles to question him. Thus began the stream of Norwegian 
immigration that has given to Wisconsin some of its best citizens. 

Previous to the year 1840 there were but six Norwegian settle- 
ments in North America, and of these three were located in Wis- 
consin. The first Norwegian settlement in Wisconsin was the fourth 
in America. It was founded at Jefferson Prairie, in Rock county, by 
Ole Knudson Nattestad. With his brother and a companion they 
left their native valley in Norway, their entire equipment consist- 
ing of the clothes they wore, a knapsack and a pair of skees. They 
traveled over snow-crusted hills till they reached Stavanger, whence 
the little sloop Restaurationen had sailed twelve years before. Here 
they had to hide until they obtained passage for America on a yacht 
loaded with herring, as the government was trying to stem the tide 
of emigration and refused to issue passports. The story of this pio- 
neer trio is a romantic one. 

The fifth Norwegian settlement in America was planted in 
Waukesha and Racine counties in 1839, and was the result of 
graphic letters written home by the people at Jefferson Prairie. The 
Waukesha and Racine colony became known as the Muskego settle- 
ment. The emigrants paid $42 apiece for passage to Boston, and 
thence they made the journey by way of Buffalo to Milwaukee. It 
took then three weeks to come from Buffalo to Wisconsin in a mis- 
erable vessel "that leaked like a sieve and could scarcely hold 
together." 

In the Muskego settlement was printed, in 1847, the first Nor- 
wegian paper in America. It was called the "Nordlyset," Even Heg 
and James D. Reymert being the publishers. 

The third Norwegian settlement in Wisconsin, known as tha 
Koshkonong colony, was the sixth in America, and became the 



212 



Leading Ecciits of Wisconsin History. 



wealthiest rural Norwegian community on the continent. The set- 
tlement was begun in 1840. The following year it obtained consid- 
erable notoriety owing to the arrest in Norway of three counter- 
feiters who had manufactured their bogus money while sojourning 
in Koshkonong. To give the bills a worn look, the counterfeiters 
had secreted them in the soles of their shoes. Imprisonment fol- 
lowed detection. The Koshkonong settlement is said to be the 
largest community of Norwegian farmers in America. 

A true picture of pioneer life among the early Norwegian set- 
tlers is contained in an address delivered at an East Koshkonong 
celebration by the Rev. Adolph Bredesen: 

"The houses of our pioneers of fifty years ago were log cabins, 
shanties and dugouts. Men and women alike dressed in blue drill- 
ing or in coarse homespun, brought over from the old country in 
those large, bright-painted chests. In 1844, I am told, not a woman 
on Koshkonong prairie was the proud possessor of a hat. Some of 




Original Mitchell Bank Building— 1S39. 



the good wives and daughters of those days sported home-made sun 
bonnets, but the majority contented themselves with the old-country 
kerchief. Carpets, kerosene lamps, coal stoves or sewing machines, 
reapers, threshing machines, top-buggies and Stoughton wagons 
were things not dreamed of. If books were few, a family Bible and 
some of Luther's writings were rarely vranting, even in the hum- 
blest homes. If the people were not versed in some of the branches 
now taught in almost every common school, they were well 
grounded in the catechism, the Forklaring and the Bible history. 
Our mothers and grandmothers did not ruin our digestion with 
mince pie and chicken salad, but gave us wholesome and tooth- 
some fiatbrod and mylsa, and brim and prim and bresta, the kind of 
food on which a hundred generations of Norway seamen and moun- 
taineers have been raised." 

In some respects the most interesting story associated with 
Wisconsin's composite nationality is that of the Swiss colonies on 



T1ie Story of the State. 213 

the Little Sugar river. These people came from Glarus. There the 
population had increased until the cultivated land of the valleys and 
the summer pastures on the Alps no longer furnished subsistence 
sufficient for them all. Food became so scarce that public meet- 
ings vi^ere held to discuss methods for inducing emigration. An. 
appropriation was made from the public treasury to defray the 
expenses of two representatives who were sent to America to locate 
a tract of land for those willing to leave their valley home. The 
men left in March, 1845, bearing with them written instructions. 
The minute directions thus committed to paper embodied an entire 
plan of government for the colony which it was proposed to estab- 
lish in the new world, with due regard to schools, churches, relief 
of sick and poor, provision for shelter, food and clothing; distribu- 
tion of land so as to give each settler proper proportion of pasture, 
timber and tillable land; cultivation of a certain tract in common; 
keeping of a journal recording principal events affecting the com- 
munity; recording vital statistics, and a hundred other matters, reg- 
ulating the conduct and aiming to promote the welfare of the wan- 
derers. 

The diary kept by the Swiss commissioners is unique; it tells in 
exact detail what they did and what they saw on their long journey 
half way across the continent, by stage, on horseback and on foot. 
Thirty miles from Mineral Point they selected a tract which they 
deemed suitable for the planting of a colony. The rocky slopes that 
fashioned the valley reminded them of their own mountainous 
Glarus, and they christened the spot New Glarus. They started to 
build huts, and awaited the coming of their kinsmen. 

On a rainy day in April, 1845, nearly 200 men, women and chil- 
dren gathered on the banks of the Linth canal to begin the long 
journey.. Arrangements had been made for but 140 persons. Two 
leaders and two spokesmen were chosen, and the colonists promised 
to obey them implicitly. Hardship was experienced from the start. 
Packed closely in an open vessel, a pelting rain succeeded by a 
blinding snow storm, added to their discomforts. The vessel was so 
small and the passengers were so many that there was no room for 
lying down, so after much distress the women and children were 
transferred, at Zurich, to covered wagons. 

"We arrived at Basle on the 18th," says the journal of Mathias 
Duerst. "The cold rain was falling in streams, and the utter 
wretchedness and discomfort were enough to chill the ardor of the 
strongest among the wet shivering men. The wagons containing 
our wives and children arrived about the same time, and although 
they had been packed in like a lot of goods, we were glad that they 
had not been exposed to the cold and wet as we had been." 

The rest of the journey was a continuation of this distress. 
Down the Rhine they slept on the bare boards of the vessel's deck. 



214 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

skirmishing for provisions at the stopping places en route. On the 
way from Rotterdam to New Dieppe they encountered a terrific 
storm. While awaiting the ocean vessel at New Dieppe they camped 
on the shore in gypsy fashion. Many suffered from hunger on the 
way over on account of the worthlessness of the food provided for 
the ship's passengers. Two deaths occurred, and the sad burial ser- 
vice of the sea was followed by the consignment of the bodies to the 
depths of the ocean. The 'half-starved company arrived at Balti- 
more after forty-nine days of ocean travel. They stopped long 
enough to hold an indignation meeting and adopt resolutions con- 
demning the treatment they had received aboard ship, and then 
proceeded to St. Louis. 

"Then we experienced the greatest pleasure of our lives," wrote 
Mathias Duerst. "None of us had ever before rode on a railroad. 
The train took us to the Susquehanna river at Columbia, where we 
left the cars and loaded our baggage and persons on canal boats, 
which were to carry us to Pittsburg. We were packed in like a 
herd of sheep. Many could not even sit, but had to stand up the 
whole night." 

When the emigrants arrived at St. Louis, they were distressed 
to find no tidings of the two pioneers who had preceded them. It 
was here that they had expected to meet them and proceed to the 
promised land under their guidance. Two houses were rented and 
they crowded into them; two of their men were dispatched to seek 
their lost leaders. They searched over the wide prairies of Illinois 
and in the wooded belts of Wisconsin, and finally accidentally 
learned their whereabouts. Mathias Duerst's entertaining Journal 
sketches with grapnic fidelity the numerous adventures of the wan- 
derers. 

In the meantime the emigrants at St. Louis had become impa- 
tient and determined to make a search on their own account. They 
reached Galena the very day that Duerst arrived there on his way 
back to St. Louis. It was a joyful meeting. The party at once 
started for the new home in Wisconsin, the more robust of the men 
going ahead afoot, carrying their belongings on their backs, the 
rest of the party following more slowly. 

On the l&th day of August, 1845, the colonists arrived at New 
Glarus. They had brought with them the kettles and pots which 
they had used in Switzerland, and these were distributed. Huts 
were built and thatched with hay, and the men went energetically 
to work to begin their humble homes. Rules and regulations were 
adopted for the government of the colony, some of them being 
unique: 

"Every one is obliged to take the land which he draws by lot, 
and whether it be better or worse, to accept the same without 
protest." 



The Story of the State. 



215 



"The main street from east to west shall be thirty feet wide, 
but the other streets shall be only fourteen feet wide." 

"All creeks, springs and streams shall be the common property 
of all lot owners." 

"The colonists shall be obliged to assist each other in building 
houses and barns." 

"Should mineral be found, then the lot on which it is found 
shall revert to the society, and the owner shall receive therefor 
appropriate compensation." 

This was the beginning of one of Wisconsin's notable foreign 
colonies. One hundred and eighty-three persons had started on the 
5,000-mile journey. They traveled by water all but a mere fraction 
of the distance. They counted 118 persons when they reached New 
Glarus. 

Most of the Belgian settlements are located in the extreme 
northeastern corner of the state. The coming of the pioneers was 




A Pioneer Milwaukee Brewery— 1S44. 

attended with hardships and adventures similar to those experi- 
enced by the vanguard of Swiss, German and Scandinavian colo- 
nists. They spoke French and the Latinized patios known as Wal- 
loon, and naturally drifted to the neighborhood of Green Bay, where 
lived French-speaking people. The first comers located in 1853, and 
they were followed by thousands of their countrymen. With the 
old-country customs and ideas, they also transplanted some of the 
village names, these being some of their settlements: Sucrerie, La 
Riviere Rouge, La Misere, St. Sauveur, Rosifere, Aux Flamand and 
Granlez. 

An episode that attracted much attention occurred in the year 
1858 in the settlement of Aux Premier Beiges. Ad&le Brice claimed 
that while walking home from church, the Virgin Mary appeared 
to her and commanded her to build a chapel on the spot and devote 
her life to the service of her faith. Threats from the clergy and 
scoffing from the incredulous failed to shake her story, ajid the 
young girl persisted in offering her devotions on the sacred spot 



216 Leading Events of M'isconsin History. 

where the vision occurred, until multitudes were attracted to the 
place. A small chapel was built, and annually on the anniversary 
of Ad61e Brice's vision, thousands go to the shrine from far and 
near to worship. 

Most Irishmen who came to the new world in the middle of the 
century preferred to remain in the cities. Early in its existence the 
city of Milwaukee had a considerable Irish element, whose leaders 
had much influence in politics. The Irish immigrants did not all 
remain in the cities, however, and several notable agricultural 
groups became established in adjoining counties. One was in Wash- 
ington county, and was appropriately named Erin. The first settler 
located there in 1841. For many years not one non-Democratic vote 
was cast in this town. There has been a transformation during the 
past decade in the population of the town, the original owners hav- 
ing been displaced by German farmers. The Germans are now in 
the majority in Erin, where once every inhabitant was a native of 
Ireland. The same chajige of nationality has been noted in several 
other settlements originally established by the Irish. 

The Welsh are also among the territorial pioneers of Wisconsin, 
and they have yet strong groups in some sections of the state. In 
the lead region a colony of Cornish miners became located during 
the mineral excitement. There are other national groups in Wis- 
consin, among them Italians, Bohemians, Dutch, Russian Jews and 
Finlanders. With the exception of the thrifty Dutch, their origin 
is of later date than the territorial era. 



PART V. 



FIFTY YEARS OF STATEHOOD. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE THIRTIETH STAR IN THE FIELD OF BLUE. 

By the admission of Wisconsin to statehood. May 29, 1848, the 
field of blue in the nation's flag received its thirtith star. The 
same year the infant state was called upon to cast its first vote for 
president of the United States, and by an interesting coincidence the 
voters had to choose between two former residents. Gen. Zachary 
Taylor had been stationed for many years as an army officer at 
Prairie du Chien (Fort Crawford) and Fort Winnebago, and had 
taken part in the Black Hawk war. He went from Wisconsin to 
win laurels on the battlefields of Mexico. Lewis Cass had served 
as governor of Michigan territory when Wisconsin was a part of 
it, and in many ways had identified himself with the material pros- 
perity of Wisconsin. Gen. Zachary Taylor was elected president, 
but Wisconsin cast its four electoral votes for Lewis Cass, Demo- 
cratic candidate. 

Statehood came to Wisconsin after much contention at home 
and in Congress. It was only after one constitution had been 
rejected that an instrument was framed which proved satisfactory. 
It was one of the most liberal constitutions that had up to that 
time been adopted by any state, and it has stood the test of fifty 
years — unaltered except in a few minor particulars. 

Long before congress listened to the appeal, there had been an 
agitation with a view to statehood. In conection with this subject, 
the people were much concerned about the boundaries of the future 
Btate. Wisconsin was the last child of the old Northwest territory, 
and perforce had to be satisfied to take what was left of the 
princely patrimony. According to the compact of 1787, the boun- 
daries of this state were to include what has become the Northern 
peninsula of Michigan, the northern tier of Illinois counties and 
that part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi river. Had the ordi- 
nance of 1787 been faithfully observed, the cities of Chicago, Duluth 
and St. Paul would now be within the boundaries of this state. In 
the latter days of the territory the people were chiefly concerned 
about securing their southern boundary rights, and the inhabitants 
of the Northern Illinois strip by popular vote decided that they 
were in cordial sympathy with the idea. The territorial council of 
1843 adopted resolutions on the subject as fiercely belligerent as the 
sentiments which the fiery South Carolinians enunciated a dozen 
years later. ■ -r 

219 



220 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



"Should such an appeal to congress be ineffectual," these reso- 
lutions go on to say, "we could safely intrench ourselves behind 
the ordinance of 1787, fortified by the doctrine, well understood 
in this country, that all political communities have the right of 
governing themselves in their own way, within their lawful boun- 
daries, and take for ourselves and our state the boundaries fixed by 
our ordinance; form our state constitution, which would be repub- 
lican; apply for admission into the Union with those boundaries, 
and if refused so that we cannot be a state in the Union, we will 
be a state out of the Union, and possess, exercise and enjoy all the 
rights, privileges and powers of the sovereign, independent state of 




Nelson Dewey. 
First Governor of the State. 



Wisconsin; and if difficulties ensue, we could appeal with entire 
confidence to the Great Umpire of nations to adjust them." 

Congress paid no attention to this defiant attitude assumed by 
the territorial council. It was important that Illinois should be 
kept in close touch with the North, and to take her lake coast away 
would, in those days of water highways, tiave made the Missis- 
sippi river her avenue of commerce, and her interests Southern. 
Congress ignored the state sovereignty threat that came from a 
corner of the Northwest, and the framers of the fiery resolution 
cooled their ardor without attempting tO' secede. 

In April, 1846, a vote was taken to determine whether the ter- 
ritorial government should be replaced by a state government; 



The Story of the State. 221 

12,334 votes were cast in favor of the proposition and 2,984 in the 
negative. A bill was then pending in congress to admit Wisconsin 
to statehood. This bill created a spirited debate, but after occa- 
sioning much controversy, finally became a law. 

Many of the leading men in the territory were members of the 
first constitutional convention, which met at Madison, Octooer 5, 
1846. The membership comprised 125 delegates, and it is note- 
worthy as indicating the influences then preponderating in the poli- 
tics of the state that forty-two of them were natives of New York 
and eighteen of Vermont, together constituting half the member- 
ship. But twelve of the delegates were of foreign birth, seven of 
these being Irishmen, three Germans, one an Englishman and the 
twelfth a native of Jamaica. Their occupations also furnish an 
interesting index of certain phases of territorial life; there were 69 
farmers, 26 lawyers, 7 mechanics, 6 merchants, 5 miners, 3 physi- 
cians, 2 lumbermen and 1 miller; the occupations of the others 
were not recorded. It may be added that the twenty-six lawyers 
practically controlled the proceedings. 

The people voted on the constitution the following spring and 
rejected it; For, 14,119; against, 20,233. This verdict was the result 
of a spirited campaign, in the course of which the proposed consti- 
tution was assailed with great vigor by stump speakers, following 
being seemingly the most obnoxious articles: 

1. The article in relation to the rights of married women, giv- 
ing wives separate ownership of property. 

2. The bank article, absolutely prohibiting any bank of issue 
and making it unlawful to circulate after the year 1847 any bank 
note, bill or certificate issued without the state, of a denomination 
less than $10, or after the year 1849 of a denomination less than ?20. 

3. The boundary article, according to which the lower St. Croix 
valley was excluded. 

There were other articles that met with decided opposition. 

"They are seeds of evil which will produce an hundred fold," 
one distinguished orator prophesied. Indeed, if the words. of the 
stump speakers were to be believed, the adoption of the unpopular 
constitution meant "ruin to the peace, prosperity and happiness of 
the people." 

It was believed after the vote was taken that had the articles 
been submitted separately, they would all have carried, but the 
combined opposition was too strong. 

There was submitted at the same time, for a separate vote, a 
resolution granting equal suffrage and the right to hold office to 
"all male citizens of African blood" possessing the same qualifi- 
cations as white citizens. This was also rejected by a decisive 
vote: For, 7,564; against, 14,615. The adverse vote was particularly 
heavy in sections where there was a preponderance of foreign-born 
citizens. 



222 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



Like the first constitutional convention, the second was composed 
of representative men, though but five delegates secured reelection. 
New Yorkers constituted a large element in the convention. The 
lawyers numbered nearly a third of the delegates, while the farmers 
comprised but slightly less than half of the entire membership. 
They met Dec. 15, 1847, and the present constitution was the result 
of their labors. 

In many respects, if not in most, the second constitution that 
was submitted to the people was similar to the rejected instrument, 
with the obnoxious clauses somewhat modified. There was one 
important addition, in that provision was made for the control of 
corporations. 




Leonard J. Farwell. 
Second Governor of the State 



"This power to alter or repeal every form of charter that can 
be granted by the state," one of the members afterwards wrote, 
"is by far the most important feature of its organic law. It is prop- 
erly recognized now as the very bulwark of public safety from the 
oppressive encroachments of monopoly. Its omission, either pur- 
posely or by oversight, from the first constitution, was a potent 
reason among the more thoughtful, for voting to reject the whole 
instrument." 

On the 13th of March, 1848, the electors ratified the constitution. 
The ballot was the essence of simplicity, containing the word "yes" 
or the word "no," according to the predilection of the voter. The 
vote was 16,797 in favor of ratification and 6,383 against. May 29th 
Wisconsin was admitted as a state. The first state legislature 



The Story of tJie State. 223 

convened June 5, and two days later the state officers were sworn 
in and the territorial government ceased to exist. 

Derfiocrats were in control during the first state administi'ation. 
Nelson Dewey, the first governor, defeated the Whig candidate, John 
H. Tweedy, by a majority of 5,0S9. A year later he was reelected by 
5,332 majority over Collins, Whig candidate. Two years later the 
Whigs succeeded in electing their candidate for governor, Leonard 
J. Farwell, by the narrow margin of 507 votes over Don J. Upham, 
Democrat; the rest of the Whig nominees were defeated. In 1854, 
the Democrats again captured the gubernatorial citadel, the suc- 
cessful nominee being William A. Barstow. E. D. Holton was 
anti-slavery -candidate and H. S. Baird was the Whig nominee. The 
latter polled only 3,304 votes, while the Holton ticket was given 
21,886 votes. Barstow's plurality was 8,519. At the next election 
Barstow claimed to have been returned by 157 plurality, but gross 
frauds were discovered, and the Supreme court set aside his cer- 
tificate in favor of Coles Bashford, his Republican opponent. For 
twenty years following this election no Democratic candidate was 
chosen for the office of governor. Alexander W. Randall succeeded 
Bashford, and his successor was L. P. Harvey. Gov. Harvey met 
a tragic death in the South, and the lieutenant governor, E. Salomon, 
succeeded him. 

During the period beginning with statehood and terminating 
"With the commencement of the civil war, political feeling ran high. 
Many men availed themselves of the conditions incident to the 
formative epoch of a commonwealth, to reap riches at the expense 
of the taxpayers. The natural result was that numerous scandals 
came to the surface. The clamor of spoils politicians over the dis- 
tribution of offices added to the excitement in the public affairs of 
the new state. One of the episodes that attracted widespread atten- 
tion was the impeachment during Gov. Farwell's term of Judge Levi 
Hubbell. Charges were filed in the legislature alleging corruption 
and malfeasance in the performance of his duties, and a committee 
of the assembly promptly presented articles of impeachment. The 
ablest lawyers in the state were arrayed on the opposing sides, 
among them E. G. Ryan and Jonathan E. Arnold. The trial occurred 
in the senate chamber and was dramatic in incidents. The arraign- 
ment of the judge by E. G. Ryan was a masterpiece of powerful 
Invective and scathing sarcasm. Judge Hubbell was as ably de- 
fended by Jonathan E. Arnold and James H. Knowlton. On the 9th 
day of July, 1853, amid tense suppressed excitement a vote was 
taken and the judge was acquitted, not enough votes being cast for 
conviction according to the requirements of the constitution. 

Another public scandal that created much excitement resulted 
from the disposal of valuable land grants to railroads. An investi- 
gating committee reported, in 1856, that managers of one of the rail- 



224 LaidiiKj Events of Wisconsin History. 

road companies had been "guilty of numerous and unparalleled acts 
of mismanagement, gross violation of duty, fraud and plunder. ' 
State officers, members of the senate and assembly and other offi- 
cials, including some of the leading men of the state, were impli- 
cated in the wholesale bribery which the lobbyists of the corpora- 
tion were instrumental in effecting. The investigating committee 
reported that stocks and bonds amounting to $175,000 had been dis- 
tributed among thirteen senators, and thirty-nine members of the 
assembly had shared stocks and bonds valued at $355,000. Three 
state officials were alleged to have received $10,000 apiece. Even the 
governor of the state was charged with benefiting pecuniarily from 
the giving of the land grants. An investigating committee learned 
that Gov. Bashford had been given bonds to the amount of $50,000 
as a gratuity, but that the gift was made after the grant had been 
disposed of and not the result of a previous understanding. 

The colossal scale that characterized the corruption of state 
officials seems to have affected many men who had previously 
enjoyed a reputation for unimpeachable probity. It is related that 
the speaker of the assembly in virtuous indignation strutted 
through the corridors of the capitol holding aloft a roll of paper 
and loudly proclaiming that it was a list of officials who had been 
bribed by the railroad company. This dramatic proclamation 
created a panic among the legislators, and public excitement was 
intense. Suddenly the speaker's list disappeared and his voice was 
heard no more in denunciation of official corruption. It was believed 
that the appearance of a package of railroad bonds on his desk from 
some unknown donor had much to do with the disappearance of the 
list of unfaithful officials. 

During Gov. Barstow's term a scandal resulted fi'om the admin- 
istration of the Land department. In the fall of 1856 the legis- 
lature appointed an investigating committee, and a shocking state 
of depravity in public office was unearthed. Political favorites had 
been permitted to enrich themselves at the expense of the state and 
the public. The books in the offices of the treasurer and land 
commissioners were in hopeless confusion; vouchers were missing; 
public funds could not be accounted for, and numerous other irregu- 
larities were apparent. 

It was during Gov. Barstow's administration that the term 
"forty thieves" was applied to the lobbyists and officials who were 
shamelessly plucking the state to feather their own nests. At the 
capitol they established headquarters known as "Monk's Hall," and 
there the monks held high revel. The people were shocked at the 
brazen effrontery that was displayed, and sharp controversies arose. 

Despite official corruption and partisan connivance at all sorts 
of irregularities, the state made remarkable progress during the 
first decade of its career. It was an epoch of canal building, and 



The Story of the State. 



225 



much attention was paid to the Fox-Wisconsin and the Rock river 
canal enterprises. Both eventually resulted in failure and were 
prolific sources of litigation. Jan. 17, 1849, the first telegram was 
received in Milwaukee. In 1851 the first railroad train was run; 
the line was from Milwaukee to Waukesha, having been two 
years in course of construction. It was not till 1857 that rails 
spanned the state. In April of that year the road from Milwaukee to 
Prairie du Chien was completed and the Mississippi was thus com- 
mercially united with Lake Michigan. In 1850 the State university 




Isaac P. Walker, Senator. 
(Henry Dodge and Isaac P. Walker were Wisconsin's first United States Sen- 
ators. The latter was a brother of George H. Walker, one of Milwaukee's found- 
ers. For voting to give California and New Mexico a government that did not 
prohibit slavery, the Legislature of W^isconsin adopted resolutions instructing 
him to resign his seat. He declined to do this.) 



■was formally opened. Emigrants came to the state in a steady 
stream; the population increased enormously, the count revealing 
nearly 100,000 more residents in 1850 than on the date of the state's 
assumption of statehood. Provision for the unfortunate classes, 
begun in territorial times, was amplified. Important laws supple- 
menting the constitution were passed, and the statutes were revised. 
By the time that Wisconsin was called upon to share in the struggle 
for the perpetuity of the Union, a more healthful moral tone pre- 
vailed in its public life than the beginnings of statehood, with their 
attendant scandals, had promised. 



CHAPTER II. 

RESCUE OF JOSHUA GLOVER, A RUNAWAY SLAVE. 

Some of the events of a political character that occurred during 
the early days of statehood deserve more than a casual mention. 
Among them were the following: An attack by a mob on the resi- 
dence of State Senator Smith of Milwaukee, on account of an obnox- 
ious liquor law; threatened civil war due to a contest for the pos- 
session of the governor's office, after a close and exciting election, 
in 1856; rescue of Joshua Glover, a fugitive slave, from the jail at 
Milwaukee; the birth of the Republican party. 

The Glover episode became a celebrated case elsewhere than in 
Wisconsin; here it stirred public excitement to fever pitch and pro- 
foundly affected the course of future events in politics. Joshua 
Glover was a runaway slave, who sought asylum in Racine in the 
early part of the year 1854. Racine was a way station on the route 
of the underground railway, and the abolition sentiment had made 
considerable headway among its people. The colored slave found 
employment in a mill. Learning his whereabouts, the Missouri 
master of the slave, one B. S. Garland, procured a process in the 
United States Disitrict court and proceeded to Glover's shanty in 
company with two deputy United States marshals. Glover was in 
his little shanty engaged in playing cards when his master and the 
marshals surprised him by their appearance. He jumped up, and as 
he resisted arresit, one of the deputies knocked him down with a 
club and leveled a pistol at his head, v/hile the others handcuffed 
him. In the words of Sherman M. Booth, whose subsequent connec- 
tion with the case gave him national notoriety, the slave "was 
knocked down and handcuffed, dumped mangled and bleeding into 
a democrait wagon, and with a marshal's foot on his neck taken to 
Milwaukee and thrust into the county jail." 

Pursuit having been anticipated, the officers made their way to 
Milwaukee by a circuitous route. The alarm had been given, how- 
ever, and it was soon learned that a negro accused of fleeing from 
his slave pen had been incarcerated in the jail at Milwaukee. When 
a hundred determined men landed by boat from Racine, formed in 
line and marched toward the jail, public excitement in Milwaukee 
grew intense. Great crowds congregated about the county jail and 
gathered in tne grounds adjacent to the courthouse. There a great 
indignation meeting was held that ended in the storming of the jail 
and the rescue of Glover. Sherman M. Booth, editor of The Free 
Democrat, who took a leading part in the courthouse meeting, 
according to the popular account of the affair rode up and down the 
streets on a white horse summoning the people to gather, shouting 

22fi 



The Story of the State. 



227 



the rallying cry: "Freemen, to the rescue!" Mr. Booth, in a recent 
address, denied many of the statements that have remained unchal- 
lenged for more than forty years. He said that he did not shout 
"Freemen, to the rescue!" and that he never advised the forcible 
rescue of Glover. What he did say, was: "All freemen who are 
opposed to being made slaves or slave-catchers turn out to a meeting 
in the courthouse square at 2 o'clock!" Ringing resolutions were 
adopted insisting on the slave's right to a writ of habeas corpus 




Sherman M. Booth. 
From, a Recent Photograph. 



and a trial by jury. A local judge issued such a writ, but the 
refusal of the federal officers to recognize its validity led to the bat- 
tering in of the jail doors. 

Glover's rescue gave rise to many legal complications and a 
great deal of litigation. The sheriff of Racine county arrested the 
slave-master and those who had aided in the capture of fhe fugitive, 
on a charge of assault. Garland obtained his release on a writ of 
habeas corpus.. In the meantime the underground railway had con- 
veyed the slave to Canada. Booth was arrested, and a grand jury 
found a bill of indictment against him and two others. He appealed 



228 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

to the Supreme court for a writ of habeas corpus. The learned 
judges read long opinions declaring the Fugitive Slave law of 1850 
unconstitutional. 

"They will never consent," Judge Smith declared, in referring 
to the right of the states in the enforcement of the law, "that a 
slave-owner, his agent, or an officer of the United States, armed 
with process to arrest a fugitive fi-om service, is clothed with entire 
immunity from state authority; to commit whatever crime or out- 
rage against the laws of the state; that their own high prerogative 
writ of 'habeas corpus shall be annulled, their authority defied, their 
officers resisted, the process of their own courts contemned, their 
territory invaded by federal force, the houses of their citizens 
searched, the sanctuary of their homes invaded, their streets and 
public places made the scenes of tumultuous and armed violence, and 
state sovereignty succumb — paralyzed and aghast — ^before the 
process of an officer unknown to the constitution and irrespoinsible to 
its sanctions. At least, such shall not become the degradation of 
Wisconsin, without meeting as stern remonstrance and resistance 
as I may be able to interpose, so long as her people impose upon me 
the duty of guarding their rights and liberties, and of maintaining 
the dignity and sovereignty of their state." 

In his speech before the United States court commissioner, Win- 
field Smith, Booth defended himself vigorously. He denied that he 
had counseled or aided in the escape of the runaway slave, but he 
made no secret of his sympathy with the feelings of the mob that 
forced the jail. 

"I am frank to say," 'he declared with emphasis — "and the prose- 
cution may make the most of it, that I sympathize with the res- 
cuers of Glover and rejoice at his escape. I rejoice that, in the first 
attempt of the slave-hunters to convert our jail into a slave-pen and 
our citizens into slave-catchers, they have signally failed, and that 
it has been decided by the spontaneous uprising and sovereign voice 
of the people, that no human being can be dragged into bondage 
from Milwaukee. And I am bold to say that, rather than have the 
great constitutional rights and safeguards of the people — the writ 
of habeas corpus and the right of trial by jury — stricken down by 
this fugitive law, I would prefer to see every federal officer in Wis- 
consin hanged on a gallows fifty cubits higher than Haman's." 

Before the Supreme court, Byron Paine made an argument In 
behalf of Booth that attracted attention all over the country. It 
was printed in pamphlet form and circulated on the streets of Boa- 
ton by the thousands. Charles Sumner and Wendell Phillips wrote 
the author letters of hearty approval and commending his force of 
logic and able presentation of argument. This pamphlet is now 
excessively rare; but half a dozen copies are now known to exist. 

Booth was discharged from imprisonment by the Supreme court 
on the ground of irregularities in the warrant. This did not end the- 



The Story of the State. 



229 



case. The United States Supreme court reversed the action of the 
state court. Booth and John Rycraft were tried in January, 1855, 
for violation of the act and were found guilty. The sentences 
imposed were: 

Sherman M. Booth — Imprisonment in the county jail one month; 
a fine of $1,000 and the costs of prosecution. 

John Rycraft — Imprisonment for ten days; fine of $200 without 
costs. 




Byron Paine. 



The owner of the rescued slave also brought suit against Booth 
for the value of Glover and obtained judgment in the United States 
District court for $1,000, representing the value of a negro slave as 
fixed by the act of congress passed in 1850. It is said that the liti- 
gation in which Booth became entangled as the result of the Glover 
episode ruined him financially. The Glover episode and attendant 
circumstances were potent factors in creating an abolition senti- 
ment in Wisconsin. In 1857 the legislature enacted a law "to pre- 
vent kidnaping," its purpose being to prevent the capture of fugi- 
tive slaves seeking asylum in this state. 



CHAPTER III. 

ON THE VERGE OF CIVIL WAR. 

Civil war threatened to convulse the people of the state in 1856 
as the result of a bitter contest for the office of governor. No gov- 
ernor ever had "warmer friends or hitterer enemies than William A. 
Barstow. The Democrats renominated him in the fall of 1855, while 
the Republicans placed Coles Bashford in nomination. Many scan- 
dals during Gov. Barstow's term gave the Republicans an oppor- 
tunity to vigorously attack his administration, and such terms as 
the "Forty Thieves" and "Barstow and the Balance" passed into 
current language in the course of the campaign. The entire machin- 
ery of election was in Democratic hands. When the state canvass- 
ers declared Barstow reelected by a majority of 157, his opponents 
loudly pix)claimed that a fraud had been committed, and that the 
returns had been doctored in the interest of the governor. Party 
newspapers made such an outcry that political passions were 
inflamed to a point that threatened personal collision between the 
factions at the capital. 

Undaunted by the charges of fraud, Gov. Barstow prepai-ed for 
his installation. Early in January, seven companies of militia 
arrived in Madison, marched to the governor's residence and 
escorted him to the capitol, where two thousand persons awaited 
his appearance and that of the other state ofiicers. With much cere- 
mony they proceeded to the senate chamber, where the usual oath of 
office was administered. 

In the meantime Coles Bashford had quietly gone to the court- 
room of the Supreme court, and Chief Justice Whiton administered 
the oath of governor. Some of the most eminent attorneys of the 
state had ranged themselves on the side of Bashford, including 
Timothy O. Howe, E. G. Ryan, Alexander W. Randall and J. H. 
Knowlton. By their advice, Bashford proceeded to the executive 
office and formally demanded possession. Gov. Barstow refused to 
yield, and the contest was thereupon transferred to the Supreme 
court. Here much legal sparring ensued, Jonathan E. Arnold, Har- 
low S. Orton and Matt. H. Carpenter representing the governor who 
had nine points of possession. 

Tremendous excitement ensued all over the state. Partisans of 
the contestants prepared for the seemingly inevitable encounter by 
arming themselves; it seemed that an appeal to physical force would 
follow the appeal to the law. The result of the court's inquiry was 
awaited with intense concern by conservative men who feared the 
consequences. 

230 



The Story of tJie State. 



231 



The counsel of the contestant won at every point in their con- 
tention before the court, and finally Barstow withdrew from the 
case, claiming that political prejudices prevented fairness of treat- 
ment, and further denying the right of the court to go behind the 
returns. Forseeing the outcome he sent his resignation as governor 
to the legislature, hoping to prevent the seating of Bashford 
by installing as governor the duly-elected lieutenant-governor, 
Arthur McArthur. It was a shrewd move, but Bashford's lawyers 
were prepared for it. They held that McArthur could gain no rights 
to the office of goVernor through the resignation of a fraudulently- 




Gov. William A. Bakstow. 



elected incumbent. The court went on with the inquiry, and found 
gross forgeries of election returns. Their amended count gave 
Bashford a majority of 1,009, and they declared him entitled to the 
office of governor. 

Instead of yielding gracefully, McArthur announced that he 
would hold on at all hazards. On the day that the court rendered 
its decision, March 24, great crowds flocked to the capitol, with a 
grim and determined air that boded ill. The corridors leading 
to the executive office were packed with men favorable to Bashford 
and determined to maintain such rights as the court would allow 
him. AS he appeared, in company with the sheriff, who had the 
court's order in possession, a great cheer announced his coming to 
those within. Gov. Bashford rapped at the door and entered. He 



232 



Leading Events of ^yisconsin History. 



at once made himself at home by doffing his overcoat and hanging 
it on a peg, pleasantly remarking to Mr. McArthur that he had come 
to take possession. 

"Do you intend to use force in expelling me?" wrathfully 
inquired the young lieutenant-governor. 

"Not unless necessary," blandly interposed Bashford, "but I 
have been invested with certain rights, and I intend to exercise 
them." 

"I must regard your threat as constructive force," retorted 
McArthur, "and I leave under protest." 

With that he marched out, followed by his private secretary and 
other friends who had been by his side to hold the fort. As he 




Gov. Coles Bashford. 



marched out, the crowd jeered and thronged into the executive 
office to shake the governor by the hand. The enemy had been dis- 
possessed with scarcely a struggle and the unexpected ending made 
the crowd good-humored. Among Barstow's adherents outside an 
ugly feeling prevailed, and it was only by the wise counsel and per- 
sonal efforts of the cooler heads that their dispersal was secured. 
Had a conflict been precipitated, there is no doubt that dreadful 
consequences would have occurred. 

For a time the assembly refused to recognize the new governor, 
but finally did so. The lieutenant-governor resumed his place as 
presiding officer of tJhe senate, and the troubled waters subsided. 

The case was a notable one. For the first time in the history of 
the country had a Supreme court been asked to oust a governor 



The Story of the State. 



233 



and seat a contestant. The lawyers engaged in the case were among 
the greatest who ever practiced at the bar in the Northwest. Jona- 
than E. Arnold and J. K. Knowlton were regarded as lawyers of 
exceptional power; E. G. Ryan became chief justice of the Supreme 
court of the state, and so did Harlow S. Orton; Matt. H. Carpenter 
died a senator of the United States; Timothy Howe and Alexander 
Randall served as cabinet officers, each occupying the position of 
postmaster-general. 

Although the crisis passed without bloodshed, there is no doubt 
that it needed but a breath to fan the flame into tremendous pro- 
portions. 

"We had arrived at the verge of revolutionary times," the pri- 
vate secretary of Gov. Barstow afterwards wrote, "and were rapidly 
drifting toward the vortex wherein the entire fabric of our govern- 
ment was to be endangered. So highly had the passions of men 
been wrought up by the political contest in which we were im- 




J. H. TWEEDT. 

First Whig Candidate for Governor of the State. 



mersed, that it was at one time dangerously near a collision; and 
those who were then best cognizant of the prevailing feeling well 
knew that had a drop of blood been shed here — one life of a parti- 
san on either side been taken in anger, the flame of civil war would 
have broken out, and would have raged until quenched, as it al- 
ways has been and must be." 



CHAPTER IV. 

BIRTH OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN WISCONSIN. 

"The Republican party had its birtli in the great Northwesi," 
said James G. Blaine in a speech delivered in Milwaukee in 1884, 
during his great campaigning tour while a presidential nominee. 
It has been claimed that Ripon, in the state of Wisconsin, was the 
baptismal font of the party that held uninte*-rupted control of the 
national administration for a quarter of a century following the 
commencement of the civil war, but this claim is disputed. 

The immediate impulse that led to the Ripon meeting of the 
party, on the last day of February in 1854, was the feeling excited 
by the Nebraska bill pending in congress. Three Whigs, one Free 
Soiler and a Democrat were responsible for the first attempt to 
create the Republican party. A. E. Bovey was their spokesman. 
The meeting was held in a little church building on College hill, in 
the village of Ripon, and here ringing resolutions were adopted in 
condemnation of the Nebraska Slavery bill. In its issue of Feb. 2, 
1854, this notice appeared in modest type in The Ripon Herald: 

NEBRASKA. 

A meeting will be held at 6V2 o'clock this (Wednesday) evening, 
at the Congregational church in the village of Ripon, to remonstrate 
against the Nebraska swindle. Come all. MANY CITIZENS. 

Another meeting was held three weeks later, and at this 
time a suggestion was made that the new party which it seemed 
would soon be formed should be called the Republican party. This 
Initial meeting created the ripple that gradually radiated all over 
the country. A state convention was held in July and an organiza- 
tion was perfected. 

The fall of the year when these meetings set in motion the 
formation of the Republican party, Wisconsin sent to the national 
halls of legislation a delegation made up of a Republican majority 
and a Democratic minority. Oharles Durkee, a Free-Soiler, was 
elected United States senator, and thus national recognition was 
secured for the new party. Two years later the first National 
Republican convention was held, and John C. Fremont was nom- 
inated for president. 

234 



CHAPTER V. 

STRANGE STORY OF A SPURIOUS LOST PRINCE. 

From a magazine article printed in 1853 grew a romantic story 
that the long-lost dauphin of France had been located in Green 
Bay, in the person of one tueazer Williams. The question was seri- 
ously discussed in newspaper articles and editorials, and a book 
appeared entitled "The Lost Prince," giving in great detail the cir- 
cumstances purporting to prove the identity of the obscure Wiscon- 
sin villager as the heir to the throne of France. Fortified by numer- 
ous coincidences, the story seemed plausible, and many persons 
were led to believe that Louis XVII. had actually been found in a 
remote frontier settlement of America after the lapse of more than 
half a century following his mysterious disappearance from the 
Tower of the Temple. 

At the same time Williams claimed that, ten years before, the 
Prince de Joinville had visited him in Green Bay, had confided to 
him the secret of his royal birth and endeavored to extort from 
him a renunciation of his rights to the throne of France. 

Dreams of royalty had come to Eleazer Williams long before the 
visit of the French prince, in 1841. A decade or more before Wis- 
consin became a territory, Williams had developed the ambitious 
project of converting this region into an Indian empire. The plant- 
ing of the Stockbridge and Brothertown Indian settlements in Wis- 
consin resulted, but his hopes of a great Indian domain, where he 
might reign, were doomed to fade away unrealized. He was then a 
young man; he had lived until his fourteenth year among the St. 
Regis Indians and exerted great control over the Indians of New 
York. His mother, whom he repudiated in order to carry out his 
part as the son of the unfortunate queen Marie Antoinette, was a 
member of this tribe of Indians. His great-grandmother was a white 
woman, and through her Williams could trace descent from distin- 
guished Puritan ancestors. A survivor of the historic Deerfield 
massacre, she had been carried as a young girl into captivity, and 
spent her life among the Indians, becoming the wife of a chieftain. 

Early in his career, Eleazer Williams undertook evangelizing 
work among the Indians of New York, becoming successively Cath- 
olic, Congregationalist, and finally a priest of the Episcopal church. 
It was while thus engaged that he conceived the idea of removing 
the New York Indians to Wisconsin and there organizing a great 
federation of aborigines. In 1820 he made 'his first Western trip, 
but numerous obstacles prevented Williams from carrying out his 
plans. Persisting in his scheme, finally John C. Calhoun was per- 
suaded to favor it. That ardent Southerner was led to foster the 



236 



LeadiiKj Events of TT/.scohsih History. 



enterprise because he hoped that the founding of a great Indian 
confederation in this region would prevent the organization of more 
free states out of the territory of the old Northwest. Througih Cal- 
houn's aid Williams was thus enabled to make another attempt — 
this time under government patronage. 

It was necessary to secure the consent of the Menomonee and 
Winnebago Indians for the proposed migration to their lands. Wil- 




Eleazer Williams as a Young Man. 
From a Picture in "The Lost Prince." 



liams arranged for a great council of the tribes at Green Bay. Pre- 
liminary to the treaty, the Winnebago warriors entertained the 
visitors with a great war dance. The whole tribe was assembled in 
front of the agency house. An eye-witness, Gen. A. G. Ellis, has 
left a graphic account of the affair, in his "Fifty-Four Years' Recol- 
lections": 

"The war dance was a sight to test the nerves of the stoutest 
heart," says his account. "The Winnebagoes at that time were in 



The Storu of the State. 237 

all their perfection of savage wildness; 2,000 of them — men and 
women, old and young — were massed in a circle, standing fifty deep; 
the whites, army officers, in the inner ring, and the warrior dancers, 
drummers and singers in the center. Twenty of their most stalwart 
young warriors took their places with not a thread of clothing save 
the breechcloth; but all painted in most gorgeous colors, and espe- 
cially the faces, with circles of black, white, red, green and blue 
around the eyes, giving the countenances expressions indescribably 
fierce and hideous; all armed with tomahawks, knives and spears. 
At first the dance was slow, to measured time of the drum and 
song; for there were a hundred singers, with the voice of the 
drummer, both male and female — the latter prevailing above the 
former. Soon they began to wax warm, the countenances assumed 
unearthly expressions of fierceness; their tread shook the solid earth, 
and their yells at the end of each cadence rent the very iheavens. 
None could endure the scene, unmoved, unappalled." 

Upon conclusion of the dance, the Winnebagoes prepared to 
depart; in an hour not one of them remained. With them vanished 
the dream of empire nurtured so fondly by Williams. A treaty was 
made with the Menomonees and small bodies of New York Indians 
were brought from New York, but the grand scheme of an Indian 
empire collapsed entirely. 

Williams made Green Bay his home, and here in 1823 he mar- 
ried pretty Madeline Jourdain. She was but 14 years old, and the 
match was of her parents' making, for her heart had been given to 
a young Frenchman whose poverty did not commend him to the old 
folks. 

For many years Eleazer Williams lived in obscurity. A chance 
remark that he resembled the royal Bourbons, it is believed, first 
gave to him the clue to his pretensions of later years. In 1841 the 
Prince de Joinville, a son of Louis Philippe, made a journey in 
America. In the course of his travels he went to Green Bay, and 
here is said to have occurred the celebrated interview that was made 
so much of in establishing the claims of Eleazer Williams as the 
long-lost dauphin of France. When the prince began his journey 
to the West, Williams was in New York. He hurried towards his 
old home to meet the royal traveler, and at Mackinac boarded the 
steamer whereon the prince was a guest. The attention paid by the 
prince to the missionary priest was so pronounced as to arouse the 
curiosity of the tourists on the boat. According to the account of 
Williams, written twelve years later, the prince requested him to 
come to his room at the hotel at Green Bay, as he had a communi- 
cation of great importance to make to him. What there occurred is 
best told in the words of Williams: 

"I found the prince alone, with the exception of one attendant, 
whom he dismissed. . . . The prince spoke to this effect: 



238 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



"You have been accustomed, sir, to consider yourself a native of 
this country; but you are not. You were born in Europe, sir, an-d 
however incredible it may at first seem to you, I have to tell you 
that you are the son of a king. There ought to be much consolation 
to you to know this fact. You have suffered a great deal, and have 
been broug<ht very low, but you have not suffered more nor been 
more degraded than my father, who was long in exile and poverty 
In this country; but there is this difference between him and you, 
that he was all along aware of his high birth, whereas you have 
been spared the knowledge of your origin." 




Eleazer Williams as an Episcopal Priest. 
From a Painting at Madison. 



Williams, in his journal, describes his own agitation over the 
astounding disclosure, and relates that while in this state of mind 
the prince produced a document and asked him to sign it. 

"The prince arose and went to his trunk, which was in the 
room, and took from it a parchment which he laid on the table and 
set before me, that I might read and give him my determination in 
regard to it. There were also on the table pen and ink and wax, and 
he placed there a governmental seal of France — the one, if I mis- 
take not, used under the old monarchy. It was of precious metal, 



The Story of the State. 239 

but whether of gold or silver, or a compound of both, I cannot say. 
. . . The document which the prince placed before me was very 
handsoimely written, in double parallel columns of French and 
English. I continued intently reading and considering it, for a 
space of four or five hours. During this time the prince left me 
undisturbed, remaining for the most part in the room, but he went 
out three or four times. 

"The purport of the document, which I read repeatedly word by 
word, comparing the French with the English, was this: It was a 
solemn abdication of the crown of France in favor of Louis Philippe, 
by Charles Louis, the son of Louis XVI, who was styled Louis XVII, 
king of France and Navarre, with all accompanying names and 
titles of honor, according to the custom of the old French mon- 
archy, together with a minute specification in legal phraseology of 
the conditions and considerations and provisos, upon which the 
abdication is made. These conditions were, in brief, that a princely 
establisihment should be secured to me either in this country or in 
France, at my option, and that Louis Philippe would pledge himself 
on his part to secure the restoration, or an equivalent for it, of all 
the private property of the royal family rightfully belonging to me, 
which had been confiscated in France during the Revolution, or in 
any way got into- their hands." 

If the story of Williams is to be believed, the upshot of his inter- 
view with the prince was the refusal of the tempting offer. He gave 
the answer that De Provence gave to the ambassador of Napoleon 
at Warsaw: "Though I am in poverty and exile, I will not sacrifice 
my honor." 

For twelve years Williams gave no intimation of the nature of 
the Interview between Prince de Joinville and himself. When the 
above version found its way into print, copies were sent to the 
prince, in France. An emphatic and indignant denial was sent by 
the prince to America. A number of clergymen hastened to the 
defense of Bleazer Williams, and a mass of testimony was com- 
piled that convinced many persons of Intelligence and standing 
that the claim of Williams to royal birth was based on fact. The 
literature on this subject — and there was a great deal of it — is proof 
that a strong chain of circumstantial evidence can be forged from 
numerous trivial and disassociated facts. The royal pretensions of 
Eleazer Williams were undoubtedly evolved from fiction, yet so well 
sustained were they that but recently a reputable London publisher 
has issued from the press a thick volume devoted to the massing of 
evidence in support of the Williams claim. All this evidence has 
been torn to shreds, however, by a searching and critical analysis 
to whidh it has been subjected by another writer on the subject, W. 
W. Wight, in a Parkman club publication entitled "Eleazer Wil- 
liams — His Forerunners, Himself." The cunning of V\''illiams in 



240 



Leading Events of Wixeoiixin History. 



cleverly manufacturing the evidence to bolster his imposture is 
here conclusively shown. 

The lost dauphin of France was the second son of Louis XVI, 
and Marie Antoinette, both of whom fell victims to the fury of the 
French revolutionists. The child disappeared from the Tower of the 
Temple June 8, 1795, and was asserted to have died. His jailer, 
Simon, was a brutal shoemaker whom the troubled times brought 
to the front and placed in his position. He ill-treated the young boy 
in ways that showed as much ingenuity as they did cruelty. On 




THE JOURDAIN RESIDENCE. 
REPRODUCED FROM "HISTORIC GREEN BAY." 

(It was in this humble cottage that the claimant to the throne of Prance 
married his bride of 14. The union was an unhappy one. Pretty Madeline Jour- 
dain had plighted her troth with a young French trader, but yielded to parental 
influence and gave her hand to Eleazer Williams.) 



one occasion Williams was shown a photograph of this man, with- 
out being told whom it represented. 

"My God, I have seen that face before," he ejaculated. "It has 
haunted me through life." 

A look of pain came over his face, and he became greatly 
excited. 

It was known that Simon, in a fit of anger, struck the dauphin 
on the head with a towel which he hastily jerked from Its place on 
the wall. The nail on which it hung came out with it, and inflicted 
a wound on the child's forehead that left a deep scar. Eleazer Wil- 
liams had just such a scar. 



The Stonj of the State. 



241 



The dauphin had scrofulous scars on the knees. Eleazer Wil- 
liams was able to exhibit scars on his knees that duplicated them 
exactly. 

After the publication of the lost dauphin story, the Duchesse 
d'Angouleme published a statement that the dauphin had on his 
arm inoculation marks, one of which was in the shape of a crescent. 
Williams was equal to the occasion. He had such a mark on his 
arm. 

One Dr. Hanson was especially ardent in arguing that Williams 
was the long-lost heir to the throne of France. To present the claim 
in forcible style, he prepared and printed a summary of the physical 
coincidences in parallel: 



Louis XVII resembled the rest of 
the Bourbon family in form and feat- 
ure, with the exception of absence in 
him of an aquiline nose. He had hazel 
eyes, tumors on both wrists, both el- 
bows and both knees, a scar on the 
eyebrow and inoculation marks on the 
arm, one of which was of a crescent 
shape. 



The Rev. E. Williams resembles 
the Bourbon family in form and feature, 
with the exception of the absence, in 
him of an aquiline nose. He has hazel 
eyes, the scars of tumors or sores in 
early life on both wrists, both elbowa 
and knees, a scar on the eyebrow and 
inoculation marks on the arm, one of 
which is of a crescent shape. 



Following the denial by the Prince de Joinville that he had 
told Williams what the latter claimed, appeared a number of affi- 
davits in New Orleans, purporting to throw ligiht on the disap- 
pearance of the dauphin during the red days of the revolution. The 
gist of these affidavits was that the dauphin had been carried to 
America and placed among the Indians. There were other circum- 
stances that fitted nicely into the story, and made the lost dauphin 
story an interesting episode in American history, though as regards 
its sequel, not an important one; nothing ever came of the ambitious 
pretensions of the Indian missionary. He enjoyed a brief term of 
notoriety and then sank back into obscurity. Friendless and alone, 
he died in 1858, in a cottage which friends had erected for him in 
the days when general interest attached to his romantic story. "His 
household presented an aspect of cheerless desolation, without a 
mitigating ray of comfort or a genial spark of home light. His 
neatly finished rooms had neither carpets, curtains nor furniture, 
save a scanty supply of broken chairs and invalid tables; boxes 
filled with books, the gifts of friends, lay stored away in comers; 
his dining table, unmoved from week to week, and covered with the 
broken remains of former repasts, and his pantry and sleeping 
room disordered and filthy, left upon the visitor an oppressive 
feeling of homeless solitude that it was impossible to efface from the 
memory." 



CHAPTER VI. 

MOB LAW AS A POLITICAL FACTOR. 

Violence committed by a mob in the city of Milwaukee turned 
the current of the state's politics in the early '50's, drove the Demo- 
crats from power and seated a Whig- as the second chief executive 
of the state. The chief incidents connected with the proceedings 
led to much local bitterness of feeling. At the session of the leg- 
islature in 1849 State Senator J. B. Smith of Milwaukee secured the 
passage of a law whose chief provision was that "the vendor of 
intoxicating drinks sihall be held primarily responsible for all dam- 
ages to the community justly chargeable to such sale or traffic." 

In consequence of the passage of this law, its opponents adopted 
defiant resolutions at a mass meeting, and those who favored it 
organized a counter demonstration. Don A. J. Upham was at this 
time candidate for governor of the state, and took a leading part 
in the opposition to the enforcement of the law. E. D. Holton led 
the friends of the law. A collision ensued when bo'th sides attempted 
to meet at the same time at the same place. The meeting, or rather 
meetings, were held at the Free Congregational church, the original 
call having been issued by the temperance people. By coming early, 
the anti-temperance people packed the meeting, and elected Mr. 
Upham chairman. When the others came they indignantly claimed 
possession. They elected E. D. Holton to preside, and at once con- 
fusion reigned supreme. 

"There were thus," says the account of a participant, "two 
chairmen, two conventions running at the same time, two sets of 
resolutions and two classes of resolutions; the confusion of tongues 
was complete. Both chairmen stood on top of the pulpit, till some 
printers, crowding in behind Upham, toppled him off onto the floor. 
Soon after the toughs were forcibly ejected, the resolutions passed 
in confusion were reaffirmed and the meeting adjourned to meet at 
the same place the next morning. A great crowd gathered the next 
day, passed strong resolutions against Messrs. Up'ham and Cross and 
in favor of law and order, and the reform canvass began." 

On the evening of March 4, 1850, a mob attacked the residence 
of the state senator who had fathered the obnoxious law, but as he 
was not at home they contented themselves with the destruction of 
property. Intense excitement resulted, and a call containing 1,200 
signatures was issued, asking friends of law and order to attend 
an indignation meeting. The call was headed in this wise: 

242 



The Story of the State. 



243 



THE CRISIS HAS COME-^SHALL THE LAW BE SUSTAINED? 

A crises has arrived. Our city has been disgraced by a mob. The property 
of one of our citizens has been destroyed by lawless violence, the rioters go 
unpunished, and no decided expression has yet been made of the strong feeling 
that exists in the community against this outrage. 

As before there was a contest between the contending factions 
for the control of the meeting. At midnight it broke up in a row, 
each side having adopted a long string of whereases and resolutions. 

The result of the local bitterness was injected into the guberna- 
torial campaign. Don A. J. Upham was defeated for governor, 
although his party associates were chosen by narrow majorities. 




Gen. Rufus King. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE TOCSIX OF WAR. 

No state responded more promptly to the call of duty than 
Wisconsin, in 1861. The ink with which the governor signed the 
proclamation calling for volunteers had not time to dry before 
messages came by wire from many parts of the state tendering 
service in defense of the Union. The government had called for 
but one regiment — ^within a week thirty-six companies had tendered 
service. So immediate was the response that the controversy of 
later years at to priority of tender became a question, not of days, 
or hours, but of minutes. Alexander W. Randall was Wisconsin's 
first war governor, and he manifested an energy and sagacity that 
proved him the man for the occasion. He held in constant reserve 
regiments of volunteers, and by thus anticipating the calls of the 
Department of War, was enabled to promptly and at all times 
respond. 

Months before the fall of Fort Sumter, Gov. Randall prepared 
for the inevitable conflict. In January, 1861, be sent a message to 
the legislature calling attention to the dangers that threatened. 

"The signs of the times indicate," said he, "that there may 
arise a contingency In the condition of the government when it 
will become necessary to respond to a call of the national govern- 
ment for men and means to maintain the integrity of the Union, 
and to thwart the designs of men engaged in an organized treason. 
While no unnecessary expense should be incurred, yet it is the part 
•of wisdom both for individuals and states in revolutionary times to 
be prepared to defend our institutions to the last extremity." 

Jan. 9, 1861, the Madison guard voted to tender its services to 
Gov. Randall, "in case they may be required for the preservation of 
the American Union." 

Before the war was over, Wisconsin had borne more than its 
share of the burdens. More than 90,000 men went to the front, or 
about one for every nine of the total population, and an average of 
one in every eight who left never returned. The state furnished 
1,263 men in excess over all calls, or a total of 91,379. This rep- 
resented more than one from every two voters of the state, and one 
in every five of the entire male population of the state. The people 
of Wisconsin raised nearly $12,000,000 for war purposes. 

"The state has furnisher under all calls from the general govern- 
ment," Gov. Lucius Fairchild reported to the legislature in 1866, 
"fifty-two regiments of infantry, four regiments and one company 
•of calvary, one regiment (of twelve batteries) of heavy artillery, 
thirteen batteries of light artillery, one company of sharpshooters 

244 



The Story of the State. 2t5 

and three brigade bands, besides recruits for the navy and United 
States organizations, numbering in all 91,379, of which number 
79,934 were volunteers, and 11,445 drafted men and substitutes." 

When the civil war began, Wisconsin was the youngest of the 
United States, with but four exceptions. Its population comprised 
mainly people of New England and New York, with strong groups 
of European colonists. Among these latter the martial spirit was 
an inheritance. Among the former were many veterans of the 
Mexican war, for Wisconsin had contributed liberally to the regi- 
ments that a dozen years before had marched from Vera Cruz to the 
City of Mexico. The military spirit had found expression in the 
organization of numerous uniformed companies. In Milwaukee 




Edward Salomon. 

alone fourteen military companies had been organized since the 
early days of cityhood. One of them, the Light guard, had a national 
reputation, and its membership comprised some of the leading 
professional and business men of Milwaukee. Foreign-born and men 
of native birth were equally loyal when the emergency came; thus 
Wisconsin was as well equipped to aid in the suppression of South- 
ern treason as many an older state. 

The ninety thousand men who- marched to the front from 
Wisconsin were as gallant soldiers as ever went to war. "The blood 
of these brave men drenched almost every battlefield from Penn- 
sylvania to the Rio Grande, from Missouri to Georgia." Among the 
infantry regiments composed in whole, or mainly, from men of 
foreign birth were these: 



246 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

Ninth, Twenty-sixth and Forty-fifth regiments — Germans. 

Fifteenth regiment — Scandinavians, with gallant Col. Hans C. Heg at the 
head. 

Seventeenth regiment — Irishmen, Col. John L. Doran in command. 

Frenchmen were numerously represented in the Twelfth regiment, and the 
Third, Seventh and Thirty-seventh numbered a sprinkling of Wisconsin Indians. 

Wisconsin also contributed nearly a thousand men to the navy. 
There being no seaport city in the state, those who sought service 
in the navy were compelled to leave home to enlist. Thus the 
Badger state failed to receive due credit. It is known, (however, 
that Wisconsin men served on four hundred and eighty-seven dif- 
ferent vessels that fougtht on the Union side. 

Loyalty found expression in prompt action in every city and 
hamlet of Wisconsin. The hearts of the people were stirred by the 
common impulse of patriotism. The national colors met the eye 
on every side; the stars and stripes adorned the pulpit, as well as 
the schoolhouse and the mart; the emblem waved from housetop, 
from window and doorway. The "Star-Spangled Banner" was sung 
with a fervor hitherto unknown. 

On the 15th day of April the news of the fall of Sumter first 
became known. That same evening patriots gathered in enthusiastic 
meetings in the cities of Milwaukee and Janesville, and soon after 
in Madison, Kenosha, Beloit, Fond du Lac, Beaver Dam and other 
cities, at which money was pledged to aid the government in 
extirpating treason. Then came the news of the attack by a 
Baltimore mob on the troops passing through the streets of the 
city, and excitement grew. On Saturday, April 19, the sum of 
$11,175 was subscribed by Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce men, 
in less than fifteen minutes. Business men hastened to sign the 
subscription lists, and within a few days Milwaukee subscriptions 
amounted to $30,000. At Madison ringing speeches and resolutions 
were supplemented with $7,500 in cash. Waupun raised $3,000 to 
distribute among the families of volunteers; Kenosha, $3,500 in an 
hour's time; Fond du Lac, $4,000, and other cities joined the proces- 
sion with proportionate amounts. 

From the pulpits came burning words of patriotism. In the 
columns of the newspapers was reflected the spirit of the people. 

"The hopes and prayers of the men of peace, and the peaceable 
spirit of the government have availed nothing," said The Milwaukee 
Sentinel of April 17. "Animated by the infernal spirit whicli 
prompted this rebellion, the South has needlessly opened this war. 
Let the government now draw the sword and throw away the 
scabbard. Let us hear no more of peace till it comes in appeal 
from the lips of conquered traitors." 

"We hang out our banner," said Matthew Hale Carpenter in a 
fervid speech that stirred several thousand hearers to enthusiasm. 
"We hang out our banner; no dusty rag representing the twilight 



llie Story of the State. 



247 



of seven stars, but the old banner that has floated triumphantly in 
every breeze; the banner Decatur unfurled to the Barbary states; 
that Jackson held over New Orleans; that Scott carried to the halls 
of the Montezumas; and thereby we mean to say, in no spirit of 
defiance, but with the firmness of manly resolution, this flag shall 
wave while an American lives to protect it. And God grant it 
may float over a peaceful land, long after the followers of the seven 
fallen stars have hung on gibbets or rotted in dungeons." 

While these sentiments undoubtedly reflected the sentiments of 
the great bulk of the people, ^here were in Wisconsin, as in other 
Northern states, disloyal men who sought to paralyze the arm of 




Gov. L. P. Harvey. 
Drowned at Pittsburg Landing. 



authority. One or two "copperhead" newspapers referred to Abra- 
ham Lincoln as a murderer, a German daily in Milwaukee and an 
English daily in La Crosse being especially conspicuous in their 
onslaughts on the government and denunciation of the war. On the 
third day of September, in the year 1862, a state Democratic con- 
vention at Milwaukee adopted an address that became famous as the 
"Ryan address." Professing to condemn the rebellion, its specious 
plea for loyalty to the constitution was artfully worded so as to 
attack the government and discourage its defenders. The address 
was written by Edward G. Ryan, and had all the force and vigor 
that distinguished the utterances of that able jurist. 



248 Lcadiny Events of Wisconsin History. 

"Blind submission to the administration of tlie government is 
not the government," this document declared. "The administration 
i8 not the government. The government is established by the 
constitution and rests in its provisions. The administration is as 
subject to the constitution and as responsible for its observance, as 
the people. The administration may err, but the constitution does 
not change. And when the administration violates the constitution, 
loyalty to the administration may become disloyalty to the union." 

In June, 1863, another state convention of Democrats was held 
in Milwaukee, at which resolutions growing out of the Ryan address 
were adopted. In August the Republicans met in state convention 
at Madison, and among the resolutions adopted was the following: 

Resolved, That we deplore the partisan hostility which has been awakened 
against the government by Interested politicians and designing demagogues of 
the North, believing that it can only tend, by encouraging rebels, to protract 
the war; and, instead of kindling the patriotism, to arouse the animosities of our 
people and to occasion elsewhere the same riotous, diabolical and anarchical 
scenes which have already disgraced the commercial metropolis of the nation. 

In September a state convention of loyal Democrats was held 
at Janesville, many of the leading members of the party partici- 
pating. One of the planks of the platfonn adopted by them read 
thus: 

Resolved, That the present rebellion was commenced and is prosecuted for 
the dismemberment of the national union, and the destruction of the constitution 
and government of the United States; that in view of the vast armies now 
arrayed by the rebels for the commission of this national murder, no individual 
and no party can stand indifferently by and witness the perpetration of the 
crime without becoming a participator in the bloody treason. 

In the dark days of defeat on the field of battle, and covert 
sedition at home, there was no abatement of loyalty among the 
great mass of Wisconsin people. Eager volunteers kept the quota 
apportioned to this state at the top notch; women aided by organ- 
izing circles for knitting socks and sewing clothes for the soldiers 
in the field. Camps were established in various parts of the state, 
where the recruits were massed preliminary to the receipt of march- 
ing orders. Camp Scott was located in Milwaukee, on the north 
side of Spring street (now Grand avenue), between Twelfth and 
Fourteenth streets, and here the first regiment was mustered into 
the United States service. The principal camps during the war 
were: 

Milwaukee— Camp Scott, named for Gen. Scott; Camp Sigel, named for Gen. 
Franz Sigel; Camp Holton, named for James Holton; Camp Trowbridge; Camp 
Washburn, named for Gen. Cadwallader C. Washburn, afterwards governor of 
the state. 

Madison— Camp Randall, named for A. W. Randall, Wisconsin's first war 
governor, afterwards postmaster-general of the United States. 

Racine— Camp Utley, named for Col. W. L. Utley, commander of th& 
Twenty-second regiment. 

Fond du Lac— Camp Hamilton, named for Maj.-Gen. C. S. Hamilton; Camp 
Wood, named for Col. D. E. W'ood, commander of the Fourteenth regiment. 



The Story of the State. 249 

Janesville— Camp Tredway. named for Brig. -Gen. W. W. Tredway, quarter- 
master-general of the state; Camp Barstow, named for William A. Barstow, ex- 
governor, colonel of the Third Wisconsin cavalry. 

La Crosse— Camp Salomon, named for Edward Salomon, elected lieutenant- 
governor, who became governor upon the death of Gov. Harvey. 

Kenosha— Camp Harvey, named for Gov. L. P. Harvey, Wisconsin's second 
war governor. 

Oshkosh — Camp Bragg, named for Gen. Edward S. Bragg, the brave com- 
mander of the Iron Brigade. 

Wisconsin soldiers fought in every important engagement dur- 
ing t'lie war. The regiments were assigned to duty among the sev- 
eral divisions as follows: 

Eastern Division, comprising the territory on both sides of the Potomac and 
upon the seaboard from Baltimore to Savannah — First (three months). Second, 
Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Nineteenth, Twenty-sixth, Thirty-sixth, 
Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth. 

Central Division, including Kentucky, Tennessee, Northern Alabama and 
Georgia — Tenth, Twenty-first, Twenty-second, Twenty-fourth, Thirtieth, Forty- 
third, Forty-fourth, Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh; also the reor- 
ganized First regiment. 

Western Division, embracing the country west and northwest of the Central 
division— Eighth, Ninth, Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, 
Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Twentieth, Twenty-third, T'wenty-flfth, 
Twenty-seventh, Tweny-eighth, Twenty-ninth, Thirty-first, Thirty-second, Thirty- 
third, Thirty-fourth, Thirty-fifth, Thirty-ninth, Fortieth, Forty-first, Forty-sec- 
ond, Forty-eighth, Forty-ninth, Fiftieth, Fifty-flrst, Fifty-second and Fifty- 
third. 

During the progress of the war a number of these regiments 
were transiferred from one division to another. The first assign- 
ment of other Wisconsin organizations was as follows: 

Eastern Division — Second, Fourth and Eleventh batteries of light artillery; 
Company F, First regiment Berdau's sharpshooters; Batteries A, JE, F, G, H, I, 
K, L and M of heavy artillery. 

Central Division — First and Third batteries of light artillery; Batteries B 
and C of heavy artillery. 

Western Division— First, Second, Third and Fourth regiments of cavalry; 
Fifth, Sixth., Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Twelfth and Thirteenth batteries of 
light artillery; Batery D of heavy artillery. 

Draft riots occurred in Wisconsin as they did in other states, but 
were not serious as to results, chiefly owing to the firm measures 
instituted by Gov. Salomon, in whose administration the first one 
occurred. This was in August, 1862, and was the only draft directed 
by the state authorities, subsequent ones being managed by repre- 
sentatives of the federal government. The War dpartment notified 
the governor that 300,000 men were to be drafted, and that Wiscon- 
sin's quota had been placed at 11,904. Volunteers came forward so 
briskly that it was found necessary to draft ibut 4,537 men in Wis- 
consin. The chief draft riots occurred at Port Washington and West 
Bend, where mobs seized the muster rolls, looted residences and 
were prevented from hanging the draft commissioner only be- 
cause of the expeditious retreat of that officer to a less turbulent 
place. The prompt arrest of the ringleaders caused the subsidence 
of the trouble. The principal resistance to the draft at Port Wash- 



250 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

ington came from Luxembourgers who owned farms in Washington 
county. They marched into town armed with all sorts' of weapons. 
The government officials fled and the angry farmers attacked the 
best residences in the town. Word was sent to Madison for troops, 
and the rioters prepared to give them a warm reception. The old 
cannon which had long been in the town was loaded with scrap 
iron and mounted on the pier, as it was supposed that the troops 
would arrive by steamer. But the steamer went by Port Washing- 
ton with her lights out and landed the soldiers unobserved at Port 
Uloa, five miles distant. The soldiers divided and approached the 
town by different routes, thus sui-prising the rioters. It was the 
Twenty-sixth Wisconsin which performed this duty. For weeks the 
farm houses were searched for the offenders, who were taken to 
Madison and put in the bull pen there. The same old cannon which 
figured in Port Washington's history was again hauled out and 
loaded with scrap iron at the time of the famous Indian scare which 
extended all over Wisconsin. 

In Milwaukee an outbreak was prevented by the firm attitude 
of the military commanders. There were angry mutterings, but the 
patroling of streets by the regiments then stationed here awed those 
who threatened disorder into sullen submission. 

The following year there was another conscription. There were 
drafted at this time nearly 15,000 men, but only 628 of them were 
mustered in. The others either paid commutation, furnished sub- 
stitutes or fled to Canada. Substitute brokers drove a thriving 
trade, and market prices were quoted daily. 

"Prices constantly advanced from the time of the call to the 
time of the draft," says an account of the draft. "The opening 
prices July 18 were: One-year men, $100;. two-year men, $200; three- 
year men, $300. At these opening prices the supply was not equal 
to the demand, and all were taken as fast as offered; as the time of 
draft drew near and anxiety increased, prices advanced. The price 
on the last day of examinations, August 20, were: For one-year 
men, $200; two-year men, $400 to $450; and three-year men, $600 to 
$650. Subsequently as high as $800 was paid for a single substi- 
tute for three years. One business man paid $700 for his man, and 
subsequently ascertained, much to his disgust, that he was physi- 
cally disqualified for the service." 

More serious than the draft riots was the gathering of a mob 
in the streets of Milwaukee and an attack on the banks of the city 
in the early days of the war. An enormous decline in the value of 
Southern bonds followed the commencement of hostilities, and as 
the Wisconsin bank circulation rested largely on these securities, 
violent fluctuations of the currency created a panic. Refusal to 
redeem bills of certain banks added to the uncertainty. A state 
convention of bankers was held to devise means for restoring con- 



The Story of the State. 



251 



fidence, and the legislature sought to bolster the situation by pass- 
ing an amended banking act. The climax came when the city bank- 
ers voted to throw out ten banks of a list which had been listed as 
sound before that time. It was on a Saturday that this news was 
published. Laborers who had received bills of the discredited banks 
became furious. On Sunday they gathered in groups and angrily 
discussed the situation. On Monday the groups amalgamated and 
the moib, led by a common impulse, marched toward the district 
where the banks were located. This was Monday, June 21, 1861. 
The German poet, Anton Thormaehlen, was on his way to his place 
of business, and attracted by the unusual demonstration, stopped to 
look at the mob. 




Mrs. Cordelia Harvet. 
A Leader In the Hospital Service. 



"There's Alexander Mitchell," some one shouted, as he observed 
that the poet wore a shiny stovepipe hat. 

The unlucky poet was seized, hurled to the ground, beaten and 
trampled upon and left for dead. He subsequently recovered and 
lived to a ripe old age. The mob pursued its way to the Wisconsin 
Marine and Fire Insurance company's bank. The clerks barricaded 
the doors, locked the funds and books of the concern in the vault 
and made their escape. The mob tore down the iron railings around 
the basement and used them in attacking the State bank opposite, 
but the presence of a large number of men in the hallway deterred 
them from carrying out their original intention of sacking the 
Mitchell bank. They wrecked the State bank, and with the demol- 



252 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



ished furniture and such cash books and paper as were conveniently 
obtainable, built a roaring bonfire on the sidewalk. 

Alarmed by the growing disorder, the authorities telegraphed 
the governor, who urged prompt suppression of the mob, and 
ordered Hibbard's Zouaves to the scene of the disturbance. In the 
meantime an alarm of fire had caused the fire department to come 
to the scene, and they effectively turned a stream on the mob. 
Checked in their plunder of the banks, the rioters became incensed 
and closed around the firemen in threatening manner. At this 
juncture the clatter of steel and the shout of the Zouaves, who were 
coming at double-quick, checked the zeal of the mob. They broke 
and fled, and the cold water from the firemen's nozzle pursued them 
till they were out of range. Fifty-two rioters were arrested. The 
damage to property exceeded $5,000. 

There was no further difficulty. Business men called a meeting 
and guaranteed the redemption of the bills of the discredited banks 
held by the laborers, and the excitement was thus allayed. 




E. G. Ryan. 
Author of the Famous Ryan Address. 



When the war ended and the soldier boys came home again, 
there were many widows and many orphans who looked in vain for 
familiar faces. Eleven thousand brave men who went forth from 
their homes in Wisconsin to battle for the preservation of the 
Union never returned. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE. 

"We estimated a Wisconsin regiment equal to an ordinary bri- 
gade," Gen. William T. Sherman wrote in his Memoirs. 

Bravery on the field of battle was but a corollary of patriotism 
at home. Where duty called, there Wisconsin soldiers responded. 
In nearly every notable engagement of the war they had an honor- 
able part. Six regiments and one company from Wisconsin took 
part in the battle of Gettysburg; in the Atlanta campaign Wisconsin 
had fifteen regiments and two batteries, and in the Vicksburg cam- 
paign thirteen regiments and three batteries. Five regiments and 
three batteries from Wisconsin fought in the battle of Stone River. 

On Shiloh's bloody battlefield, in the battle of the Wilderness, 
at Chickamauga, in the gallant charge at Missionary Ridge, Wis- 
consin troops were in the heat of the battle. Out of every hundred 
men, twenty-two died or were wounded. The Second Wisconsin 
heads the list of regimental losses during the war, in the number 
killed and died of wounds — more than 19 per cent, of the -whole 
enrollment. "The total loss sustained by this regiment throughout 
the war represented the extreme limit of danger to which human life 
was exposed during the protracted struggle." 

A youth of 19 years was the first Wisconsin soldier whom the 
bullets of the rebels laid low. When the First Wisconsin was 
encamped in the barracks on Spring street, Milwaukee, George C. 
Drake said to a friend that he never expected to return home with 
his comrades. In the skirmish of Falling Waters his premonition 
came true. 

"I expect to be the first to fall," were his words as they were 
wading through the Potomac and about to engage the enemy. 

The First Wisconsin was in the lead of the column that 
crossed the Potomac into Virginia at 3 o'clock on the morning of 
July 2, 1861. There was picket firing, but the rebels retreated slowly, 
keeping just in advance of the skirmishers. Suddenly a volley of 
musketry greeted the advancing soldiers. The fire was immedi- 
ately returned. As young Drake was reloading for the second val- 
ley, a bullet pierced him near the heart. "My mother!" were the 
words that came to his lips as he fell to the ground and expired. 
His remains were taken to Williamsport, Md., and there buried with 
the honors of war. 

At the battle of Falling Waters, Warren Graham, another young 
Wisconsin soldier, was fatally wounded, four billlets having lodged 
in his body. His remains were brought to Milwaukee and interred 
at Forest home. Graham was a Milwaukee newspaper man. At 



254 Leading Evoits of Wisco7isin History. 

Hagerstown the rebel press was captured by the Unionists and 
Warren Graham, with the assistance of several printers of the regi- 
ment, converted the instrument of treason into a patriotic factor by 
issuing a spirited little sheet which he called The Camp Record. 

The Iron Brigade well earneu its title. It was the only brigade 
composed mainly of Wisconsin men, three of the five regiments 
comprising it being from this state — the Second, Sixth and Seventh 
Wisconsin. No Wisconsin regiments suffered such a terrible loss in 
killed and wounded as those of the Iron Brigade. The loss at the 
battle of Gainesville considerably exceeded one-third of the entire 
command. The ranks of the Second Wisconsin were thinned as a 
field of grain might be by the scythe of the mower. A characteristic 
anecdote is told of Lieutenant-Colonel Fairchild in connection with 
this battle. After the battle, Col. Fairchild could not realize that 
the loss had been so terrible. 

"Where is the regiment — have they scattered?" he asked. 

"Colonel," replied the major, "this is all that is left of the Sec- 
ond — the rest lie on the field." 

"Thank God they have not deceived their friends; they are 
worthy of their name," said Fairchild. 

The conduct of the Second had been indeed gallant. "For nearly 
twenty minutes," wrote Lieut. William Noble, "this regiment alone 
checked and sustained the onset of the whole of Stonewall Jack- 
son's division of rebel infantry, under one of the most intensely 
concentrated fires of musketry probably ever experienced in this or 
any other war." 

This is how the Iron Brigade received its name. Gen. George B. 
McClellan, after the war, narrated the incident to Gen. John B. 
Callis, commander of the Seventh Wisconsin. It was at the battle 
of South Mountain. Gen. McClellan's headquarters were so located 
that he could see along the pike to the gorge in the mountain. Gen. 
Hooker came dashing down the pike road to headquarters, and Gen. 
McClellan asked him: 

"What troops are those advancing on each side of the pike, near 
the gorge, under that murderous fire?" 

"That," said Gen. Hooker, "is Gibbon's brigade of Wisconsin 
men, from Wisconsin and Indiana." 

"They must be made of iron," said McClellan. 

"By the eternal," responded Hooker, "they are iron, and if you 
had seen them at second Bull Run, as I did, you would know them 
to be iron." 

From that time they bore the name that so well described them. 

"Antietam was our bloodiest day," Gen. E. S. Bragg says In 
his reminiscences of the Iron Brigade's experiences. "Antietam 
closed a period of forty-five days during which we ^had fought or 
been under fire eleven days ,and had been engaged in four pitched 



The Story of the State. 



255 



battles. At Antietam the brigade lost about 400 men, at Soutli 
Mountain 317, and in the battles of Gainesville and second Bull Run 
873, but the percentage of loss to the number engaged was much 
higher at Antietam than in any other engagement of the series. The 
brigade was almost obliterated, but it was built up again, and kept 
up its reputation in succeeding campaigns." 




Old Abe, Wisconsin's War BagIiE. 

On the Flambeau River, a branch of the Chippewa, an Indian captured the 
eagle that accompanied the Eighth Wisconsin Regiment in all its marches and 
lived through thirty-six battles and skirmishes. The bird of freedom was given 
his name in honor of the great emancipator. Old Abe seemed impervious to 
rebel bullets, although many rebels sought to bring him down as he soared above 
the field of battle and inspired the boys in blue by his fierce screams filled with 
the lust of battle. 

After the war the Wisconsin war eagle was exhibited at many fairs in all 
parts of the country, including the great Sanitary Fair in Chicago, where the sum 
of $16,000 was realized from the sale of his photographs. He was also a great 
attraction at the Soldier's Home Fair held in Milwaukee. 



Gen. Bragg narrates an incident that occurred during this bloody 
battle — "the bloodiest day that America ever knew," as Horace 
Greeley described it. 

"We came the nearest to losing the guns at Antietam, when the 
enemy came so close that they killed the gunners at their posts in 
a hand-to-hand fight. The battery was posted In the cornfield 
which was so stubbornly contested by the contending forces. Just 
at the moment I was about to fall from the effect of a shot, I 



256 Lcadiiirj E cents of Wisconsin History. 

detected a movement of the rebels directed at the battery, which was 
doing heroic services. Gen. Gibbon saw me reel and rushed up, 
aslting: 'Old man, are you hit?' 

" 'Never mind me now,' I answered, 'they are flanking the bri- 
gade and charging the battery.' 

"Gibbon took in the situation in an instant, and with his accus- 
tomed prompt action, he disposed his force to resist the charge. 
The guns were set in sections some distance apart, so that when 
they opened on the charging force, which came on in column, they 
struck its head with a converging fire, the effect of which was to 
literally raise the head of the column right up into the air. But 
they did not stop; on they came, while the guns of the battery 
belched fire into their ranks. Gibbon shouted for double cannister, 
which showed that the enemy was within a very short distance. 
And on they came, right up to and in among the guns, where the 
most terrific fighting ensued. There Capt. Jim Campbell was 
stricken down by a shot in the shoulder and taken off the field, 
fully believing that his pet guns had been taken from him. He 
came back to our improvised field hospital, crying like a child, 
and I could not understand it. 

" 'Why, Jim,' said I, as he came in, 'are you making that fuss 
over a little hurt like that?' 

" 'It's not the -hurt, Colonel,' said the brave fellow, 'I have lost 
my guns, and I did not even have time to spike them.' 

"And he reached into his vest pocket with his available hand and 
drew out a package of files, moaning all the time over the loss of 
his guns. He would have laid down his life most cheerfully to save 
them. I assured him that he would find the guns all right, and such 
proved to be the fact. But it was a narrow escape they had." 

An incident associated with the Seventh Wisconsin regiment's 
part at Gettysburg — and more particularly Co. F of that regiment — 
has been immortalized in verse by Bret Harte. During the fierce 
fighting there, a quaint-looking old chap approached the boys of 
Co. F and asked the loan of a gun, as he wanted to take a hand 
in the fight. He looked like a character derived from the days of 
the Revolutionary war, and a broad smile greeted his request — he 
seemed so out of place. But one of the officers humored the old man 
and gave him gun and ammunition. All day long the old man loaded 
and fired, and his unerring aim turned ridicule into respect. Three 
times wounded, he continued to send his leaden messengers of death 
among the rebels, and refused to leave the Wisconsin men whom 
he had so strangely chosen as his comrades. 
Have you heard the story that gossips tell 
Of Burns of Gettysburg?— No? Ah, well; 
Brief is the glory that hero earns. 
Briefer the story of noor John Burns: 
He was the fellow who won renown, — 
The only man who didn't back down 



The Story of the State. 257 

When the rebels rode through his native town; 
But held his own in the fight next day. 
When all his townsfolk ran away. 

The old man had been a soldier in the war of 1812 and had 
fought in Mexico. When the rebels drove away his cows and looted 
his barnyard, the old spirit animated John Burns. To paraphrase 
the poet's lines a bit, 

a practical man was Burns. 

Who minded only his own concerns. 

Troubled no more by fancies fine 

Than one of his calm-eyed, long-tailed kine. 

He was a picturesque sight, and an inspiration as in tihe thick 
of the fight he calmly loaded his gun again and again — as cool and 
unconoemed as if bullets were n6t whistling by on every side. 

Just where the tide of battle turns. 

Erect and lonely stood old John Burns. 

How do you think the man was dressed? 

He wore an ancient long buff vest. 

Yellow as sailron — but his best; 

And, buttoned over his manly breast 

Was a bright blue coat, with a rolling collar. 

And large gilt buttons — size of a dollar — 

With tails that the country folk call "swaller." 

He wore a broad-brimmed, bell-crowned hat. 

White as the locks on which it sat. 

Never had such a sight been seen 

For forty years on the village green. 

And it was terrible. On the right 
Raged for hours the deadly fight. 
Thundered the battery's double bass- 
Difficult music for men to face; 
While on the left — where now the graves 
Undulate like the living waves 
That all that day unceasing swept 
Up to the pits the rebels kept- 
Round shot ploughed the upland glades. 
Sown with bullets, reaped with blades; 
Shattered fences here and there 
Tossed their splinters in the air; 
The very trees were stripped and bare; 
The barns that once held yellow grain 
Were heaped with harvests of the slain; 
The cattle bellowed on the plain. 
The turkeys screamed with might and main. 
And brooding barn-fowl left their rest 
With strange shells bursting in each nest. 
So raged the battle. You know the rest: 
How the rebels, beaten and backward pressed, 
Broke at the final charge and ran. 
At which John Burns— a practical man- 
Shouldered his rifle, unbent his brows. 
And then went back to his bees and cows. 

Gen. Callis of Lancaster is said to have given John Burns the 
rifle which he used at Gettysburg. 



258 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

Special honor was secured by the Fifth Wisconsin at the battle 
of Williamsburg, where they came upon the enemy for the first time. 
In the severe fighting before Fort Magruder, at the junction of the 
Yorktown and Hampton roads, their courage and endurance were 
put to a severe test. A Sentinel correspondent thus described the 
critical period of the battle: "Numbers of our men were lying on 
the ground, their oil cloths over them, to protect them from the 
pelting rain, which had been falling all day. Some were asleep, 
some sitting in squads, others alone, with their heads reclining 
upon their hands, when the sharp, quick rattle of musketry startled 
every one to his feet, to see our skirmishers attacked by an over- 
whelming force. Everyone sprang to his place, when from a corner 
of the woods, about 400 yards from us, could be seen a regiment of 
cavalry and two regiments of infantry deploying into the open field 
in our front at double quick. Ten guns were the object they cov- 
eted, but Wisconsin boys were there to defend them. Over 1,000 of 
the bravest chivalry of the South now advanced against less than 
500 of the Badger state. Our batteries limbered up and left us to 
fight our own battle. Not discouraged, our men stood their ground 
manfully, notwithstanding comrades were falling thick and fast." 
Pressed back by overwhelming numbers, the soldiers from Wis- 
consin retreated slowly, disputing every inch of ground. 

"Will you leave me and the old flag?" cried Col. Amasa Cobb, 
as they seemed to waver before the furious onslaught of the enemy. 
"No, never!" came the hearty response, and the men rallied 
around the flag with a firmness that checked the rebels. Two regi- 
ments from Maine now poured a ^ower of lead into the ranks of 
the foe so opportunely checked, and as the batteries sent a hail of 
grape into their ranks, the rebels broke and fled in wild confusion. 
The situation of the Fifth Wisconsin had been the most critical, 
pitted as they were with two Maine regiments against six of the 
best Confederate regiments, comprising nearly 4,000 men. The battle 
flag of the Fifth North Carolina, with its unique emblem of the 
Southern cross, bearing flfteen stars, was a trophy that fell to the 
Wisconsin men. 

"My lads," said Gen. McClellan two days later, "I have come to 
thank you for your gallant conduct the other day. You have gained 
honor for your country, your state and the army to which you 
belong. Through you we won the day, and Williamsburg shall be 
inscribed upon your banner." 

Glorious was the charge of the Wisconsin's Irish regiment at 
the battle of Corinth. This regiment carried not only the stars and 
stripes, but likewise the distinctive colors of their native isle. They 
were dashing, almost reckless, in impetuous bravery. On this occa- 
sion they were ordered to charge with the bayonet, the rebels hav- 
ing crossed a line of breastworks, hotly driving the Union men 
before them. 



The Story of the State. 259 



"Faugh a ballah," was their battle cry, and they shouted it in 
unison as they bore down upon the rebels. The enemy sought to 
ward off the shock of the wild dash by a deadly volley that felled 
forty men and made rags of the flying national and Irish colors. 
Undeterred the Irishmen swept down upon the Confederates, and 
soon their solid wall of glistening steel had put to rout an entire 
brigade of panic-stricken rebels. 

"Boys of the Seventeenth," said their brigade commander, Gen. 
McArthur, "you have made the most glorious charge of the cam- 
paign." 

Perched upon a banner of the Eighth Wisconsin regiment in all 
its marches and during all the battles in which the regiment fought, 
was a live eagle that gave to the famous regiment its name — Eagle 
Regiment. "Old Abe," the Wisconsin war eagle was called, and 
whenever his scream of battle was heard, there confusion came 
upon the Confederates. "Old Abe" soon became famous. The 
rebel general. Price, ordered his men to kill or capture the bird at 
all hazards. 

"I would rather have you capture the eagle of the Eighth Wis- 
consin than a dozen battle flags," he declared to his men. 

None of the many rebel bullets that sped in his direction found 
lodgment beneath his feathers. In the din and smoke of battle, he 
spread his pinions and uttered wild, piercing screams that grew 
wilder and fiercer as the storm of battle grew louder. 

"When the battle raged m.ost fiercely," wrote a correspondent m 
Harper's Weekly, "and the enthusiasm of the soldiers was at its 
highest, then it was that Old Abe seemed to be In his element. He 
flapped his wings in the midst of the furious storm, and with head 
erect faced the flying bullets and the crashing shells with no sign of 
fear. Old Abe triumphs with the triumph of the flag, and seems in 
some measure conscious of his relationship with the emblem of a 
victorious republic." 

Through thirty-six battles and skirmishes Wisconsin's war eagle 
went unscathed. 

During the hard-fought battle of Ohancellorsville, Col. Thomas 
Allen's Fifth Wisconsin regiment won great glory, though at fear- 
ful cost, by the capture, in company with two other regiments, of 
the rebel redoubt on Marye's Heights. Five thousand men had lost 
their lives in vain attempts to take this natural fortress. Before 
starting on their perilous mission. Col. Allen addressed his men: 

"Boys, you see those heights. You have got to take them. You 
think you can't do it, but you can! You will do it! When the order 
'forward' is given you will start at double quick; you will not fire a 
gun; you will not stop until you get the order to halt! You will 
never get that order!" 

The order to march was responded to with alacrity. Up the 
slope went the men till they oame within a hundred yards of the 



260 Leadiiu; Evcnt'i of ^]isconsin Histoiy. 

stone wall. Then from rifle pits above and on each side, from 
behind the wall of stone and from the windows of houses and from 
batteries oh the crests of the hill, came a murderous fire. The car- 
nage was terrible. Within a few minutes five hundred men had 
fallen, and still bullets and canister came in steady stream and 
mowed the ranks of the assaulting columns. Undaunted, the gal- 
lant Fifth kept on its way and reached the wall. They leaped the 
wall; their bayonets gleamed as they thrust at the defenders; they 
scaled the heights and the rebels surrendered. 

It fell to the lot of Wisconsin soldiers to open the memorable 
battle of Pittsburg Landing. A reconnoitering force of the Six- 
teenth Wisconsin came upon a superior force of the enemy sta- 
tioned behind a fence, and were fired upon. Lieut.-Col. Fairchild 
commanded part of the force and was the first to announce the com- 
ing of the rebels. The Sixteenth and Eighteenth Wisconsin regi- 
ments were attacked with great fury, and were forced to fall back. 
The Eighteenth had but just arrived from Milwaukee when its men 
found themselves in the front of the battle. But a week hefore 
they had been encamped at home; some of them had never loaded 
a musket before. "Many of the men," Gtov. "Harvey wrote from the 
battlefield a few days later, "heard the order to load and fire for the 
first time in their lives In the presence of the enemy." 

When the telegraph apprised the people of Wisconsin how ill her 
soldiers had fared on the bloody field of Shiloh, Gov. Harvey organ- 
ized a relief expedition and determined to go in person to the scene 
of carnage to care for the sick and wounded. Necessary supplies 
were generously contributed by the people of Wisconsin, and in 
less than twenty-four hours after the receipt of the news a car load 
of the supplies was on the way. The governor and his party cared 
for the sick and wounded from his state and arranged for their 
transportation home. 

On the 19th of April, 1S62, Gov. Harvey was aboard the steamer 
Dunleith awaiting the arrival of the steamer Minnehaha, which was 
to take him down the river. It was a dark, rainy night. The gov- 
ernor was standing near the bow of the Dunleith, when the Minne- 
haha came alongside. Whether he missed his footing as he tried 
to step over, or whether he slipped on the wet plank, is not posi- 
tively known. A splash between the steamers apprised his com- 
panions that he had fallen into the river. In the darkness the 
efforts made to save him proved fulile; the rapid current of the 
Tennessee swept him beyond the reach of friendly hands, and sev- 
eral days later his body was found by negro children sixty miles 
below. The remains were conveyed to the state capital by special 
train. The death of the governor caused genuine sorrow, for he 
was a man of broad sympathies and had endeared himself to the 
people during the brief time of his administration. 



The Story of the State. 261 



Only those who have seen the ascent of Missionary Ridge can 
appreciate the valor of the Wisconsin soldiers who stormed that 
height, with the belching fire of fifty cannon mowing their ranks. 

"At twenty minutes to 4 o'clock," says one account of the battle, 
"six signal guns were fired, and the long-waiting, ardent troops 
leap forth first to carry the rifle pits at the foot of Missionary Ridge. 
Wood's and Sheridan's skirmishers take the advance. Baird's divi- 
sion, embracing the First, Tenth and Twenty-first Wisconsin, moves 
at the left of Wood, and Johnson on the right of Sheridan. As they 
come to the base of the mountain the rebel pickets swarm out of 
their rifle pits in great amazement and flee before them. As yet no 
word of command has been given to go beyond the base, but they 
stop not for orders. A few moments they delay to re-form, and 
then start up the ascent. Front and enfilading shot, from musketry 
and fifty cannon, are plunging down upon them; some fall, the rest 
press dauntlessly on; they clamber up the side, leaping ditches, 
jumping logs, advancing in zig-zag lines, rushing over all obstacles, 
dodging, if they can, the missiles of heavy stone thrown down upon 
them by the rebels, and thrusting aside their bayonets until they 
reach the top, beat back the enemy and take the ridge. Then go up 
tremendous shouts of joy, which are echoed back from every loyal 
household of the land." 

"The Third Wisconsin," wrote a correspondent of The New 
York Post in reporting the second battle of Winchester, "was 
exposed to an enfilading fire of four or five rebel regiments; yet, as 
oool as if on parade, faced about and marched the whole line down 
the hill toward town. As this regiment came down the hill, three 
companies formed behind a stone wall and poured into the advanc- 
ing rebels a withering fire." 

"Boys, I am proud of you," said Gen. Sullivan fo the Twelfth 
Wisconsin battery on the field of Corinth. "You have done nobly. 
The dead in front of j'our battery show the work you have done." 

Two regiments of infantry and four batteries from Wisconsin 
had a part in the capture of Island No. 10. Gen. Pope ordered "New 
Madrid" and "Island No. 10" to be inscribed on the banners of the 
Eighth Wisconsin in recognition of their bravery. 

The incidents which have been told are but few of many that 
are associated with the valorous conduct of Wisconsin's soldiers 
in the war. Nor are they confined to one or a dozen regiments. 
Deeds of individual heroism and of bravery pertaining to all alike 
marked the conduct of every regiment and every battery that Wis- 
consin sent to the front. If one excelled another, it was because of 
more abundant opportunity. In the grand summing up of achieve- 
ment, they share alike in their unflinching response to the call of 
duty. 



CHAPTER IX. 

LIEUT. CUSHING's DEED OF HEROISM. 

Maxy as were the deeds of heroism during the civil war, none 
outranks in daring and sagacity that of Lieut. W. B. Gushing, a 
native of Delafield, in Waukesha county. The destruction of the 
ram Albemarle which he planned and successfully executed was like 
"fighting a powder magazine with a coal of fire." With this engine 
of destruction, the Confederates had sunk the steamer Southfield 
and put to flight her companion vessel, the Miami, in Albemarle 
Sound. In a terrific engagement with the entire fleet, the rebel iron- 
clad had been somewhat battered, but had not been captured, and 
held for the Confederates the river front of the tawn of Plymouth, 
N. C, wliich the Union forces were attacking by land and water. 

The destiniction of the iron-clad by means of a torpedo rendered 
possible the subsequent capture of this North Carolina town by 
removing the protection on the river front. Cushing's daring 
exploit occurred during the night of October 27, 1864. Although 
rebel guards were stationed on the exposed top deck of the sunken 
steamer Southfield, and although a boom of logs surrounded the 
Albemarle at a distance of thirty feet, the fast little torpedo boat 
that Cushing commanded eluded the guard and ran up to the logs, 
where Cushing succeeded in exploding his torpedo beneath the ram. 
He had fourteen men with him. All of them were captured; his. 
own escape was due to the same daring spirit that prompted the 
enterprise. The details of the torpedo boat's expedition and the 
personal experiences of its commander in making his escape from 
the jaws of death are well worth telling. 

Cushing had two plans for encompassing the destruction of the 
rebel iron-clad. One was for a hundred men to reach the vicinity by 
penetrating a thick swamp, and to board the ram by means of 
inflated India rubber boats. The 'second was for a small party to 
approach in two small launches and to explode a torpedo beneath 
the ram. The latter plan was attempted. On the way down to 
Norfolk one of the little boats was captured. It was the best one, 
but Cushing pursued his way undaunted. Nobody knew whither he 
was bound save himself. Fifty miles up the sound he told his men, 
for the first time, the purpose in view, and gave every man the priv- 
ilege of leaving. Not one accepted the proffered release. 

The approach of Cushing's little boat toward the iron- 
clad was like a journey into the jaws of death. Aboard the rebel 
ram was a force of ten times the handful accompanying Cushing; 
near by, ashore, were thousands of rebels. The shot of a picket 
would prove their death warrant; the chances were that the success 

262 



The Story of the State. 



263 



of their enterpi'ise would involve their own destruction. It was like 
fighting a duel at half a dozen paces, one combatant armed with a 
pistol, the other with a cannon. 

The rebel pickets on the exposed part of the submerged vessel 
failed to notice Cushing's boat as it passed within thirty feet of 
them. All unconscious of impending danger, the Albemarle lay at 
her moorings. Gushing determined to creep around and suddenly 
dash aboard from the bank. 

"Just as I was sheering in close to the wharf," says Cushing's 
account, as published in The Century war papers, "a hail came sharp 
and quick from the iron-clad, and in an instant was repeated. I at 
once directed the cutter to cast off, and go down tO' capture the 
guard left in our rear, and ordering all steam went at the dark 




Commander W. B. Gushing, U. S. N. 



mountain of iron in front of us. A heavy fire was at once opened 
upon us, not only from the ship, but from men stationed on the 
shore. This did not disable us, and we neared them rapidly. A 
large fire now blazed upon the bank, and by its light I discovered 
the unfortunate fact that there was a large circle of logs around the 
Albemarle, boomed well out from her side, with the very intention 
of preventing the action of torpedoes. To examine them more 
closely I ran alongside until amidships, received the enemy's fire, 
and sheered off for the purpose of turning, a hundred yards away, 
and going at the booms squarely at right angles, trusting to their 
having been long enough in the water to have become slimy — in 
which case my boat, under full headway, would bump up against 
them and slip over into the pen with the ram. This was my only 
chance of success, and once over the obstruction, my boat would 



264 Leading Events of Wisconsin Histo7-y. 

never get out again; but I was there to accomplish an important 
object and to die, if needs be, was but a duty. As I turned, the 
whole back of my coat was torn out by buckshot and the sole of my 
shoe was carried away. The fire was very severe." 

During a lull in the firing the rebel captain's voice came over 
the water from the iron-clad, asking the intruders who they were. 

"All my men," continues Gushing, "gave some comical answers, 
and mine was a dose of canister, which I sent among them from the 
howitzer, buzzing and singing against the iron ribs and into the 
mass of men standing by the fire upon the shore. In another 
instant we had struck the logs and were over, with headway nearly 
gone, slowly forging up under the enemy's quarter-port. Ten feet 
from us the muzzle of a rifle-gun looked into our faces, and every 
word of command on board was distinctly heard. 

"My clothing was perforated with bullets as I stood in the bow, 
the heel-jigger in my right hand and the exploding line in the left. 
We were near enough then, and I ordered the boom lowered until 
the forward motion of the launch carried the torpedo under the 
ram's overhang. A strong pull of the detaching line, a moment's 
waiting for the torpedo to rise under the hull, and I hauled in the 
left hand, just cut by a bullet." 

Simultaneously with the explosion there crashed into the midst 
of the men on the launch a hundred pounds of grape, from less 
than a dozen feet range. At the same instant almost a tremendous 
volume of water which the torpedo had propelled into the air came 
down with crushing weight. 

"Save yourselves," cried Gushing, as he threw away sword, 
revolver and shoes and plunged into the chilling water of the river. 

"Surrender!" came the summons from the enemy. •"Surrender!" 
came in repetition, and a hail of bullets fell on all sides of the 
gallant commander, as he swam for the opposite shore. Boats soon 
pulled in every direction, picking up and making prisoners the dar- 
ing men who had blown a hole through the bottom of the iron- 
clad. Gushing knew that the fleet of the Unionists was a dozen 
miles away, but he preferred death to surrender. Unheeding the 
summons of his pursuers he swam in the darkness of the night for 
a place of shelter. At times it seemed as if he must give up the 
struggle and sink beneath the waters of the Roanoke never to rise 
again. 

"I directed my course towards the town side of the river," says 
his narrative, "not making much headway, as my strokes were now 
very feeble, my clothes being soaked and heavy, and little chop- 
seas splashing with a choking persistence into my mouth every 
time that I gasped for breath. Still there was a determination not 
to sink, a will not to give up; and I kept up a sort of mechanical 
motion long after my bodily force was in fact expended. 



The Story of the State. 265 



"At last, and not a moment too soon, I touched the soft mud, 
and in the excitement of the first shock, I half raised my body and 
made one step forward; then fell, and remained half in the mud and 
half in the water until daylight, unable even tO' crawl on hands and 
knees, nearly frozen, with brain in a whirl, but with one thing 
strong in me — the fixed determination to escape. The prospect of 
drowning, starvation, death in the swamps — all seemed lesser evils 
than that of surrender." 

Daylight showed Gushing his perilous situation. Scarcely forty 
yards away was one of the forts of Plymouth. Soldiers and sailors 
filled the town, and their movements betokened great excitement. 
The narrative of Cushing's remarkable es6ape from his place of 
peril is thrilling. Here it is in his own words: 

"It was a source of satisfaction tO' me to know that I had pulled 
the wire that set all these figures moving (in a manner quite as inter- 
esting as the best of theatricals), but as I had no desire of being 
discovered by any of the rebs who were so plentiful around me, 
I did not long remain a spectator. My first object was to get into 
a dry fringe of rushes that edged the swamp; but to do this required 
me to pass over thirty or forty feet of open ground, right under the 
eye of the sentinel who walked the parapet. 

"Watching until he turned for a moment, I made a dash to cross 
the space, was only half way when he turned and forced me to drop 
down right between two paths, and almost entirely unshielded. 
Perhaps I was unobserved because of the mud that covered me, and 
made me blend in with the earth; at all events the soldier contin- 
ued his tramp for some time, while I, flat on my back, awaited 
another chance for action. Soon a party of four men came down 
the path at my right, two of them being officers, and passed so 
close to me as almost to tread upon my arm. They were convers- 
ing upon the events of the previous night and wondering how it 
was done, entirely unconscious of the presence of one who could 
give them the information. This proved to me the necessity of 
regaining the swamp, which I did by sinking my heels and elbows 
into the earth and forcing my body inch by inch towards it. For 
five hours, then, with bare feet, head and hands, I made my way 
where I venture to say none ever did before, until I came at last to 
a clear place, where I might rest upon solid ground. The cypress 
swamp was a network of thorns and briers, that cut into the flesh 
at every step like knives, and frequently, when the soft mire would 
not bear my weight, I was forced to throw my body upon it at 
length and haul it along by the arms. Hands and feet were raw 
when I reached the clearing, and yet my difficulties v/ere but com- 
menced. A working party of soldiers was in the opening, engaged 
in sinking some schooner in the river to obstruct the channel. I 
passed twenty yards in their rear through a corn furrow and gained 



266 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

some weeds below. Here I encountered a negro, and after serving 
out to him twenty dollars in greenbacks and some texts of scrip- 
ture (two powerful arguments with an old darkey), I had confidence 
enough in his fidelity to send him into town for news of the ram." 

Doubtless the time seemed hours to Gushing while awaiting 
the return of the darkey. "When he returned," Cushing's narrative 
continues, "and there was no longer doubt that she had gone down, 
I went on again and plunged into a swamp so thick that I had only 
the sun for a guide and could not see ten feet in advance. About 2 
o'clock in the afternoon I came out from the dense mass of reeds 
upon the bank of one of the deep narrow streams that abound there, 
and right opposite to the only road in the vicinity. It seemed prov- 
idential that I should come just there, for thirty yards above or below 
I never should have seen the road, and might have struggled on until 
worn out and starved— found a never-to-be-discovered grave. As 
it was my fortune had led me to where a picket party of seven sol- 
diers were posted, having a little, flat^bottomed, square-ended skiff 
toggled to the root of a cypres tree that squirmed like a snake into 
the inky water. Watching them until they went back a few yards 
to eat, I crept into the stream and swam over, keeping the big tree 
between myself and them, and making for the skiff. 

"Gaining the bank, I quietly cast loose the boat and floated 
behind it some thirty yards around the first bend, where I got in 
and paddled away as only a man would whose liberty was at stake. 

"Hour after hour I paddled, never ceasing for a moment, first 
on one side, then on the other, while sunshine passed into twilight 
and that was swallowed up in thick darkness, only relieved by 
the few faint star rays that penetrated the heavy swamp curtain 
on either side. At last I reached the mouth of the Roanoke, and 
found the open sound before me." 

Fortunately for the fugitive the sea was calm, for his frail craft 
would have certainly been capsized had there been an ordinary 
sea. There was just sufficient swell to infiuence his boat, and he 
"was forced to paddle all upon one side to keep her on the intended 
course." 

For two hours he continued to steer for the place where he 
believed the federal fleet to be, with a star for his compass. "At 
length," to quote his naiTative once more, "I discovered one of the 
vessels, and after a long time got within hail. My 'ship ahoy!' was 
given with the last of my strength, and I fell powerless, with a 
splasih, into the water in the bottom of my boat, and awaited results. 
I had paddled every minute for ten consecutive hours, and for four 
my body had been 'asleep,' with the exception of my arms and 
brain. The picket vessel, Valley City — for it was she — upon hearing 
the hail at once slipped her cable and got under way, at the same 
time lowering boats and taking precautions against torpedoes. 



TM Story of the State. 267 

"It was some time before they would pick me up, being con- 
vinced that I was the rebel conductor of an infernal machine, and 
that Lieut. Gushing had died the night before. 

"At last I was on board, had imbibed a little brandy and water, 
and was on my way to the flag-ship, commanded by Commander 
Macomb. As soon as it became known that I had returned, rock- 
ets were thrown up and all hands called to cheer ship; and when I 
announced success, all the commanding ofiicers were summoned on 
board to deliberate a plan of attack. In the morning I was again 
well in every way, with the exception of hands and feet, and had 
the pleasure of exchanging shots with the batteries that I had 
inspected the day previous. I was sent in the Valley City to report 
to Admiral Porter at Hampton Roads, and soon after Plymouth 
and C*iie whole district of the Albemarle, deprived of the iron-clad's 
protection, fell an easy prey to Commander Macomb and our fleet." 

The Captain of the Albemarle at the time she was sunk by Cush- 
ing's torpedo afterwards declared that "a more gallant thing was not 
done during the war." It was indeed a daring enterprise, requiring 
not merely daring, but a high degree of coolness and skill. The 
torpedo arrangement was a complicated affair. "In considering 
the merits of Cushing's success with this exceedingly complicated 
instrument," remarked J. R. Soley in a Century foot-note, "it must 
be remembered that nothing short of the utmost care in preparation 
could keep its mechanism in working order; that in making ready 
to use it, it was necessary to keep the end of the spar elevated until 
the boat had surmounted the boom of logs, and to judge accurately 
the distance in order to stop the boat's headway at the right point, 
that the spar must then be lowered with the same precision of 
judgment; that the detaching laniard must then be pulled firmly, 
but without a jerk; that, finally, the position of the torpedo under 
the knuckle of the ram must be calculated to a nicety, and that 
by a very gentle strain on a line some twenty-five or thirty feet 
long the tripper-pin must be withdrawn. When it is reflected that 
Cushing had attached to his person four separate lines, viz., the 
detaching laniard, the trigger-line, and two lines to direct the move- 
ments of the boat, one of which was fastened to the wrist, and 
the other to the ankle of the engineer; that he was also directing 
the adjustment of the spar by the halliard; that the management 
of all these lines, requiring as much exactness and delicacy of 
touch as a surgical operation, where a single error in their employ- 
ment, even a pull too much or too little, would render the whole 
expedition abortive, was carried out under a fire of musketry — so 
hot that several bullets passed through his clothing— and directly 
in front of the muzzle of a 100-pounder rifle, and carried out with 
perfect success, it is safe to say that the naval history of the world 
affords no other example of such marvelous coolness and profes- 



268 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

sional skill as that shown by Gushing in the destruction of the 
Albemarle." 

Before starting out on this perilous expedition, young Gushing 
visited his mother at her home, and told her all the particulars 
of the apparently suicidal venture. 

"Mother," he said. "I have undertaken a great project, and no 
soul must know until it is accomplished. I must tell you for I 
need your prayers." 

"My son," said his distressed mother, "I believe you will 
accomplish it, but you cannot come out alive. Why did they call 
upon you to do this?" 

"Mother," was the reply, "it shall be done, or you will have no 
son Will. If I die, it will be in a good cause." 

Mrs. Gushing suffered all the agony of a mother in dreadful 
suspense, until there came a telegram from her other son: "William 
is safe and successful." 

Gushing received a vote of thanks from congress and the con- 
gratulations of the Navy department. He was also promoted to the 
grade of lieutenant-commander. 



CHAPTER X. 

A DAM THAT SAVED A FLOTILLA. 

In the museum of the State Historical society, at Madision, are 
the sword and uniform of Gen. Joseph Bailey. The legislature 
purchased them a few years ago from Gen. Bailey's widow in 
recognition of the famous achievement of this officer in saving 
from destruction the Mississippi flotilla under Admiral Porter. Early 
in the year 1864, the Unionists planned an invasion of Texas by 
way of the Red river. It was a part of this plan that Admiral 
Porter's fleet of gunboats should cooperate with a land force under 
Gen. Banks, and the boats were ordered to Natchitoches, eighty 
miles above Alexandria. Low water greatly embarrassed the opera- 
tions of the fleet, many of the larger boats being unable to pass 
beyond Grand Encore. While the boats were endeavoring to ascend 
the Red river, the land forces had gone on and engaged the Con- 
federate forces, finally finding it necessary to retreat. In this situa- 
tion the fieet found itself in perilous predicament. The water con- 
tinued to fall, and the guns of the rebels galled the crews as they 
sought to retrace their way down the river. When they finally 
reached Alexandria the stage of water was so low that the passage 
of the rapids was an utter impossiblity. By this time the abandon- 
ment of the expedition had been fully decided upon, and it became 
a matter of the utmost importance and urgency to extricate the fleet 
from its predicament. 

Joseph Bailey of the Fourth Wisconsin calvary was acting 
chief engineer of the Nineteenth army corps. While the engineers 
were nonplussed as to the proper thing to do, Bailey recalled a 
simple method whicb he had often employed while lumbering In 
Wisconsin. He proposed to dam the river and run the boats down 
by means of a sluice. 

"It cannot be successfully done," was the unanimous comment 
of his fellow engineers. Porter also doubted the feasibility of the 
project. The necessity of doing something became so urgent that 
finally Bailey's apparently absurd plan was tried. The river was 
dammed, and in eleven days all the boats had safely passed the 
rapids. The fleet was saved. The squadron of iron-clads was thus 
enabled to safely return to the Mississippi river. Bailey's achieve- 
ment made him famous, and he was given the rank of brigadier- 
general in recognition of his signal services. After the war he went 
to Missouri. Two years later he was assassinated by bushwhackers. 

Of this engineering feat Admiral Porter said: "It has saved 
the Union a fleet worth nearly $2,000,000; has deprived the enemy 



270 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

of a triumph, which would have emboldened them to carry on the 
war a year or two longer, for the intended departure of the army 
was a fixed fact, and in case that event occurred, there was nothing 
left for me to do but destroy every part of the vessels." 

The official report to the secretary of the navy says that Col. 
Bailey's proposition "looked like madness and the best engineei-s 
ridiculed it." Had it not been that the gunboats were caught like 
rats in a trap, doubtless the attempt would never have been 
made. 



CHAPTER XL 

Wisconsin's part in the capture of jeff. davis. 

It fell to the lot of Wisconsin calvarymen to take a conspicuous 
part in the pursuit and capture of Jefferson Davis. It was the 
second important event in the career of Davis associated in some 
measure with Wisconsin people. As a young army lieutenant he 
had been stationed at Prairie du Chien, where he wooed and won 
one of the daughters of Zachary Taylor. 

When, it became evident to the leaders of the Confederacy 
that their cause was hopelessly lost, Jefferson Davis sought to escape 
to the coast of the Atlantic or the gulf. It was suspected by the 
Unionists that he would make the attempt alone and in disguise, 
and a close watch was kept on all roads and ferries in Georgia 
to intercept the fugitive. It was believed that the fleeing president 
of the Confederacy had a large amount of gold with him, and this 
circumstance made the hunters keen in pursuit of their prey. Flar- 
ing handbills offering a reward of $100,000 for the capture of the 
rebel chief were scattered broadcast, in the hope of tempting even 
the Southerners to join in the pursuit. 

How Wisconsin soldiers came to be specially chosen to under- 
take the capture of Davis is thus related by Gen. Wilson, com- 
mander of the calvary corps: "On the afternoon of 'May 6, I sent 
for Gen. Croxton, commanding the First (McCook's) division, and 
directed him to select the best regiment in his division, and send 
it forthwith, under its best officer, eastward by the little town of 
Jefferson to Dublin on the Oconee river, with orders to march with 
the greatest possible speed, scouting the country well to the north- 
ward of his route, leaving detachments at all important cross roads 
and keep a sharp lookout for all rebel parties, whether large or 
small, that might be passing through that region. It was hoped 
by these means that the route pursued by Davis might be inter- 
sected and his movements discovered, in which event the command- 
ing officer was instructed to follow wherever it might lead, until 
the fugitive should be overtaken and captured." 

For this important mission. Gen. Croxton selected the First 
Wisconsin cavalry. "They were commanded," says Gen. Wilson's 
account, "by Lieut.-Col. Henry Harnden, an officer of age, experience 
and unconquerable resolution, who reported to me after his regi- 
ment was on the march, and whom I notified that Davis was known 
to have an escort variously estimated at from ten to fifty men, all 
fully armed and determined to die in the last ditch, if need be, 
in his defense. The sturdy old general understood fully what he 
might encounter and what M'as expected of him, and assured me 

271 



272 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



as he galloped away that he would give a satisfactory account of 
himself and command if he should have the good fortune to find 
the party he was sent after. He had selected 150 of his best men 
and stoutest horses, and, marching all nig'ht, he reached Dublin 
the next evening at 7 o'clock, having left an officer and thirty men 
at Jeffersonville with orders to send out scouts in all directions. 
During his march he had kept scouting parties well out on both 
sides of his column in hopes of finding the trail of the party for 
whom he was searching, but nothing of importance occurred till 
after he had bivouacked for the night." 




Jefferson Davis 



Wisconsin. 



(One of the earliest lumbermen In the Chippewa valley was Jefferson Davis. 
As a young man he was stationed at the Prairie du Chien fort, and he was sent 
to the Chippewa valley to get out lumber for some of the fort buildings. Zach- 
ary Taylor was his commander. The story has been often repeated that young 
Davis eloped with one of Rough and Ready's daughters while he was a lieuten- 
ant under Taylor at Prairie du Chien, but later in life Davis denied the truth 
of the story. In his autobiography he says: "I resigned from the army in 1835, 
being anxious to fulfill a long existing engagement with a daughter of Colonel 
Zachary Taylor, whom I married, not 'after a romantic elopement,' as has so 
often been said, but at the house of her aunt and in the presence of many of her 
relatives, at a place near Louisville, Ky.") 



Such was the behavior of the people of Dublin that Col. 
Harnden's suspicions were aroused. He declined all their offers of 
hospitality, and determined to keep a strict watch for developments. 
It was evident from the commotion among the colored people and 
the profuse friendship of the whites that the latter were anxious 
to distract his attention from something of unusual import. 

An important clue came to Col. Haraden about midnight. A 
darkey crept into his tent and requested an interview. Prom him 



The Story of the State. 273 

the calvaryman learned that during the day a mysterious party of 
mem, women and children had been ferried across the river. The 
negro had heard one of the women addressed as "Mrs. Davis," 
and one of the men as "President." The story of the negro was so 
circumstantial that Col. Harnden was convinced of its truth, 
although a rigid cross-examination of the white ferryman failed to 
add to the stock of information. Another negro was found whose 
testimony in part confirmed that of the first, and Col. Harnden pre- 
pared to start in hot pursuit. 

By 2 o'clock in the morning seventy well mounted calvarymen 
were riding along the forest path knowTi as "the river road," which 
the negro informant had designated as the route pursued by the 
fugitives seventeen hours before. By way of precaution, Col. 
Harnden detailed sixty men to scout towards the seacoast, while 
hb went south with his men. A courier was at the same time dis- 
patched to Gen. Croxton with a message advising the commander 
of the latest developments and plan of operation. This messenger 
fared ill. Losing his way in the tangled forest, he fell into the 
hands of robbers and when he reached Macon the news that Davis 
had been captured had preceded him. 

It was a dark night when Col. Harnden's Wisconsin riders 
started in pursuit, and they experienced some difiiculty in finding 
the right road. The country was sparsely settled, and the road 
was not well defined, while in places creeks and swamps almost 
obliterated it. During the forenoon rain began to fall and made 
the trail still more uncertain. In this emergency, the troopers 
impressed a number of Georgia crackers into service as guides, 
and before they camped, the drenched and weary men had covered 
a distance of forty miles. 

By 3 o'clock the following morning the pursuers were again 
in the saddle, crossing creeks and swamps and passing through 
thick forests. When they reached the Ocmulgee river they were 
but three hours behind the fugitives. Impatient as they were to 
seize their prey, they could not go on for two hours on account 
of the leaky condition of the old scow that served as a ferry. 
The crossing was tediously slow, but the condition of the river 
made fording an impossibility, and it was dangerous to swim the 
horses across. At this ferry they learned such facts as to remove 
all doubts that the fleeing chief of the lost cause was in the 
party ahead. 

A mile and a half below the ferry was located a little cluster 
of houses, and here Col. Harnden's men halted to feed their horses. 
Much to their surprise, the advance guard of the Fourth Michigan 
Cavalry, under Col. Pritcfiard, came jogging along just as the First 
Wisconsin men were about to resume their march. The Michigan 
men had been sent on the same errand as the Wisconsin regiment. 



274 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



and thus they had come upon each other. Col. Hamden informed 
Col. Pritchard that he had been following the Davis party for two 
days and claimed first right to the road. The justice of the claim 
was admitted by Col. Pritchard, whose information of Davis' 
whereabouts came from Col. Harnden, and he offered the latter 
the assistance of part of his regiment. This offer was declined. 
The Wisconsin men thereupon took up the trail, going towards 
Irwinville. 





00.00 



Osje Jijmdvtd Th«wxaii(i^B5©li%4 Reward 

in Cold, will *^e paid To an^/ person o» peisoi\svvho wii 
pr€hendanclde)iver JEfP£RS'>IS, DiVIS tu wiy of lh«Mr| 
ilary »ythont^"s of the UnUed Sfe<es> 

S«.. •..' i..i|l.on» ..I- .|>.cl«, rtfv'lfa «> W "Hk »>" 

^ropd^ «♦ ih* €n<7l»rS 



Copt of a Handbill, Picked Up in Georgia After the War. 
From a Reduced Facsimile in The Century. 



Learning that by making a detour he could find another road 
leading to Irwinville, Col. Pritchard determined to take it. So 
expeditious were the movements of the Michigan men that they 
reached the Davis camp about the same time that the Wisconsin 
men hove in sight from another direction. Each regiment mistook 
the other for the rebel escort of Jefferson Davis and sharp firing 
ensued. Before the discovery was made that Wisconsin and Michi- 
gan soldiers were firing upon each other, two of the latter were 
killed, and three men of the First Wisconsin severely wounded. 
A number of others received slight wounds, including an oflicer 
of the Fourth Michigan. 



The Story of tJie State. 275 



Luck was with the Michigan men in apprehending Davis. They 
first reached the tents where the party was encamped and sur- 
rounded them. After the unfortunate firing, a woman came to 
the door of the largest tent and asked if her servant would be 
allowed to go for water. The rest of the story is thus told by an 
eye-witness, William P. Stedman, a member of the Fourth Michi- 
gan: "Consent was given, when out came a tall person, with a 
lady's waterproof overdress on and a small brown shawl on the 
head, a tin pail on the right arm and a colored woman leaning on 
the left arm. This tall person was stooping over as if to appear 
shorter; I at once concluded that it must be Davis in disguise. 
They started off east towards the creek, where the brush was very 
thick. As they were going they had to pass several soldiers who 
were straggling round the camp. I sat still on my horse, expecting 
that some of the soldires would halt them as they passed by; 
but such was not the case, for they passed all of the soldiers 
without being noticed. Then I galloped my horse around the north 
side of the tent and, passing to their left, halted them. Just at 
this time there came riding up to us two of our soldiers. They made 
a few remarks to the tall person. He turned his face a little 
towards me, and I saw his gray moustache. We told him his 
disguise would not succeed. Then Davis and the colored woman 
started back towards the tents. As Davis had got about half way 
back to the tent, we were met by some of our men, who had just 
discovered that Jefferson Davis had tried to escape in disguise." 



CHAPTER XII. 

ESCAPE OF WISCONSIN OFFICERS FROM LIBBEY PRISON. 

Five Milwaukee officers crept through the famous tunnel of 
Libbey prison, whence 109 Union prisoners escaped during the 
night of Feb. 9, 1864. Of these, Gen. Harrison C. Hobart, Gen. 
T. S. West and Adjt. Albert Wallber, with fifty-four others, suc- 
ceeded in reaching the Union lines after a series of remarkable 
adventures. Gen.. Hobart was one of the leaders of the enterprise, 
and was the man upon whom devolved the duty of closing the 
tunnel after the passage of the last man of the original party in 
the secret. This, in abridged form, and nearly in his own words, 
is the story of the escape as- told by Gen. Hobart to his comrades 
of the Wisconsin Loyal Legion: 

"On the ground floor of the building, on a level with the street, 
was a kitchen containing a fireplace, at a stove connected with 
which the prisoners inhabiting the rooms above did their cooking. 
Beneath this floor was a basement, one of the rooms in which was 
used as a storeroom. This storeroom was under the hospital and 
next to the street, and though not directly under the kitchen, 
was so located that it was possible to reach it by digging down- 
ward and rearward through the masonry work of the chimney. 
From this basement room it was proposed to construct a tunnel 
under the street to a point beneath a shed, connected with a brick 
block on the opposite side, and from this place to pass into the 
street in the guise of citizens. A knowledge of this plan was 
oonflded to about twenty-five, and nothing was known of the 
proceedings by the others until two or three days before the 
escape. A table knife, chisel and spittoon were secured for working 
tools, when operations commenced." 

Upon completion of the tunnel, which was barely large enough 
to enable a full-grown person to crawl through, the company waa 
organized and placed under Gen. Hobart's charge. In order to 
distract the attention of the guard, a dancing party with music was 
extemporized. As the first man emerged upon the street and 
walked away, seen by hundreds of his fellows, wild excitement 
was created, and they rushed down to the chimney and clamored 
for the privilege of going out. They would listen to no denial, 
and Gen. Hobart then held a parley and arranged that the rope 
by which the descent was made to the basement, after the last of 
the original party had passed out, should be pulled up for the 
space of one hour — ithen it should be free to all in the prison. 

Gen. Hobart had joined forces with Col. T. S. West, and they 
were the last of the party who crawled through. About 9 o'clock in 

276 



The Story of the State. 



277 



the evening they emerged from the tunnel, and cautiously crossing 
an open yard to an arched driveway, stepped out upon the street 
and -walked slowly away, apparently engaged in earnest conversa- 
tion. They passed through one of the main streets of Richmond, 
Gen. Hobart simulating a decrepit old man in exceedingly ill health 
and badly affected with a consumptive cough. Squads of soldiers 
whom they met sympathetically got out of the way of the supposed 
old man, who was clinging to the arm of his companion. Thus 
they reached the suburbs of the town and made for the country. 

While concealed in a ravine, a bloodhound appeared, but did 
not cross a brook over v/hich the two fugitives had jumped. They 
spent the night in a haystack and in the morning pursued their 




Gen. Harrison C. Hobart. 
From a War-time Photograph. 



way. By means of a long pole which reached the opposite shore 
of the Chickahominy river from the limb of a tree which they 
had climbed, they managed to get across that stream. In a neigh- 
boring forest they were alarmed to catch sight of a man watching 
them from behind a fallen trefe. They supposed tTiey had fallen 
into an ambush, but the man proved to be an escaped prisoner. 
By this time the escape was known and the country was alive 
with pursuers. They could distinctly hear the reveille of the rebel 
troops and the hum of their camps. 

Frequently the ninaways ran almost into the arms of the 
enemy. Once Col. West saw a sentinel sitting close by a railroad 
track, asleep, with his gun resting against his shoulder. They 
traveled all night to get away from the dangerous proximity, and 
when dawn came heard the bugle notes of the enemy's cavalry in 



278 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

the pines close by. Without loss of time, they again fled as fast 
as they could go, momentarily expecting to hear the crack of rifle 
or the sharp command to halt. In the center of a dense chapparal 
they threw themselves upon the ground in utter exhaustion. 

In the shadow of friendly darkness the fugitives — weajy, 
hungry and footsore and guided in their course by the north star — 
made their toilsome way from wood to wood, sometimes almost 
running into the arms of their foes. A plantation darkey helped 
to extricate them from their perilous position. Gen. Hobart had 
gone to the negro's cabin, while his companions remained in con- 
cealment. He rapped and entered, and the negro said: 

"I know who you are; you're one of dem 'scaped officers from 
Richmond." 

Looking him full in the face and placing a hand to his shoulder. 
Gen. Hobart said: "I am, and I know you are my friend." 

The darkey's eyes sparkled as he repeated: "Yes, sir; yes, sir; 
but you mustn't stay here; a reg'ment of cavalry is right dar," 
pointing to a place near by, "and they pass dis here road all 
times of the night." 

Refreshed with a glass of milk and some corn bread, the weary 
fugitives were conducted to a secluded spot in a cane brake. The 
darkey explained that the rebel picket was posted on a narrow 
neck of land between two impassable swamps, and over this neck 
ran the main road to Williamsburg. The negro agreed to guide 
them through a long cane-break path around the picket — a most 
risky undertaking, for they had to pass between the cavalry reserve 
and their videttes, who were sitting upon their horses but a 
few rods in front. He then took thom around to the pike, about 
a mile beyond this last post of the rebels. 

Gen. Hobart and his companions had escaped Tuesday night. 
Early Sunday morning they were on the bank of the Diascum 
river, but found themselves unable to cross, though they managed 
to reach an island in the river. An attempt to construct a raft 
proved unsuccessful. The water was cold, and the men were too 
weary to attempt swimming across. At this juncture a young rebel 
rowed a boat up-stream and they lured him to the island. They 
pretended they were farmers from different localities on the Chick- 
ahominy and induced him to row them across the river. He 
seemed suspicious, however, and recrossed the river in great 
haste. Anticipating that the enemy's cavalry would soon be in 
hot pursuit, they decided to hide near the river bank. 

"The wisdom of this course was soon demonstrated," said Gen. 
Hobart in narrating the story. "The cavalry crossed the stream, 
dashed by us and thoroughly searched the country in front, not 
dreaming but we had gone forward. We did not leave our seclusion 
until about midnight, and then felt our way with extreme care. 



Tlie Stonj of the State. 279 

The proximity of Williamsburg was evident from the destruction 
everywhere apparent in our path. There were no buildings, no 
Inhabitants and no sound save our own weary footsteps; desolation 
reigned supreme. Stacks of chimneys stood along our way like 
sentinels over the dead land." 

This is how Gen. Hobart and his companions finally came 
among friends. "For five days and six nights, hunted and almost 
exhausted, we had picked our way through suiTounding perils 
toward the camp fires of our friends. We knew we were* near the 
outpost of the Union troops and began to feel as if our trials were 
nearly over. But we were now in danger of being shot as rebels 
by scouting parties of our own army. To avoid the appearance of 
spies we took the open road, alternately traveling and concealing 
ourselves that we might reconnoitre the way. About 2 o'clock in 
the morning, coming near the shade of a dark forest that overhung 
the road, we were startled and brought to a stand by the sharp 
and sudden command: 'Halt!' Looking in the direction whence it 
proceeded, we discovered the dark forms of a dozen cavalrymen 
drawn up in line across the road. 

"A voice came out of the darkness, asking: 'Who are you?' 
We replied: 'We are travelers.' The same voice replied: 'If you 
are travelers, come up here!' 

"Moving forward, the cavalry surroundded us, and carefully 
looking at their coats, I concluded they were gray, and nerved 
myself for a recapture. It was a supreme moment to the soul. 
One of my companions asked: 'Are you Union soldiers?' In broad 
Pennsylvania language the answer came: 'Well, we are.' In a 
moment their uniforms changed to a glorious blue, and taking off 
our hats, we gave one long, exultant shout." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

AFTER THE WAR EVENTS OF THREE DECADES. 

From the arts of war to tne pursuits of peace seemed a long 
step, yet to the people of Wisconsin the transition was brief. On 
the 28th day of May, 1866, the Fourth Wisconsin Regiment of 
cavalry was mustered out after service of five years and a day — 
the longest term on record credited to a volunteer organization. 
Those of the soldier boys who came home resumed their avocations 
or drifted into others, and began where they had left off in the 
development of the commonwealth. The history of Wisconsin 
became akin to that of its neighboring states— the alarum of war 
was succeeded by the hum of industry. Prosperity and plenty 
smiled upon the people. Forests were leveled ana cities were 
built; steel ribbons lengthened in radiating bars from the common 
center — the state's metropolis; river falls and rapids were harnessed 
to machinery to supply the power for a thousand wheels; out of 
the earth were dug the ores most useful to commerce. Soon the 
industries of the commonwealth became diversified and were 
distributed among the world's three great sources of wealth and 
prosperity — agriculture, mining and manufacture. 

Thus has Wisconsin progressed for three decades. It would be 
indeed strange if during this period of half an ordinary life-time 
there had been no vicissitudes — internal troubles, political dissen- 
sions, disaster from vioience of the elements, financial panics from 
causes common to the people of the whole country. These there 
have been, and they have had their temporary effect in retarding the 
progress of the state. If some of these unpleasant episodes are 
given more in detail than the more important counter influences, 
it is because the narration of circumstances promoting the welfare 
of the state would prove a mere repetition. It is the exceptional 
circumstance that appears in boldest relief. 

For the second time in the history of the state, a member of 
the United States senate was, in 1866, requested by the legislature 
to resign his seat as Wisconsin's representative. The first senator 
from the state, Isaac P. Walker, had given umbrage by his vote 
not to exclude slavery from California. In the case of Senator 
James R. Doolittle, the cause of displeasure among his constituents 
was his course, during the bitter days of reconstruction, in standing 
by President Andrew Johnson. When the president's long quarrel 
with congress culminated in impeachment proceedings, but one 
more vote in the senate would have given the required two-thirds 
for the impeachment of President Johnson. Had Senator Doolittle 
voted in conformity with the wishes of the people whom he repre- 

280 



The Story of the State. 281 

sen ted, Andrew Johnson would have been ousted from the presi- 
dency. Doolittle voted no. Two years previously the legislature 
of Wisconsin had adopted resolutions instructing him to resign 
the senatorial office. To this demand Senator Doolittle paid no 
attention; his term expired in 1870, and he was then replaced by 
Matthew Hale Carpenter. Senator Doolittle had served twelve 
years in the United States senate, during the most momentous 
period since the founding of the republic: "Before the war, when 
the question was the extension of slavery; during the war, the 
epoch of secession; after the war, when the issue was recon- 
struction." 

Senator Doolittle's attitude during the reconstruction days was 
the more irritating to his constituency in that he had been an able 
champion of Abraham Lincoln and his course. It was Senator 
Doolittle's ringing epigram that, delivered in the hearing of a vast 
assemblage, had provoked thunders of applause that frightened 
the conspirators intent upon defeating Lincoln: 

"Fellow citizens," were his words, "I believe in God Almighty, 
and under Him I believe in Abraham Lincoln." 

The Fifteenth amendment was ratified by Wisconsin March 
9, 1869. Ever since the first Constitutional Convention, in 1846, 
the question of negro suffrage had periodically been raised to vex 
the people. By decisive votes the proposition had several times 
been snowed under. At the same time that the voters rejected 
the first state constitution submitted to them, they declined to 
grant colored men the right of suffrage, the vote standing 7,564 
for and 14,615 against. The heavy adverse vote was due to the large 
element of Southerners in the southwestern corner of the state; 
here negro slaves had been held by men of influence, including the 
first governor of the territory. In the localities largely settled by 
Germans the vote against negro suffrage was also heavy, the 
antagonism of the Germans having been aroused by an unfortunate 
"attempt made in the convention of 1846 to couple the vote on 
foreign suffrage with that on negro suffrage." 

In the second Constitutional Convention the section on suffrage 
was restricted to white voters, by a majority of one. Such was 
the growth of the Free Soil movement that but a twelvemonth 
thereafter the legislature submitted the question of granting suf- 
frage to persons of African blood to a vote of the people. About 
30,000 votes were cast for state officers at this election, but less than 
10,000 voters expressed themselves on the suffrage question. Thus, 
while 5,265 voters were in favor of the law, as against 4,075 in oppo- 
sition, it was assumed that every blank vote was a negative one 
and that the amendment was defeated. For seventeen years this 
assumption was tacitly held to be correct, when the refusal of 
election officers in Milwaukee to accept the proffered ballot of 



282 LcadiiKj Events of Wisconsin History. 

Ezekiel Gillespie, a colored man, led to a Supreme court decision 
that the amendment voted on in 1849 had undoubtedly carried 
and must be accepted as law. 

Thus Wisconsin, in the van of nearly all the other states, had 
given to colored men within its borders the right to vote. In the 
meantime, unconscious that universal suffrage was their law, the 
people of the state twice rejected a proposition to allow colored 
men to vote — in 1857, when the adverse majority was 12,000 out of 
a total vote of 60,000; and again in 1865, when 100,555 voters 
expressed themselves, and the opponents of negro suffrage had 
8,059 majority. 

Many stumbling blocks were encountered by women in their 
efforts to secure legal recognition in this state. It was not until 
1877 that the legislature passed a law permitting members of their 
sex to practice law. The year before that the Supreme Court of 
the state rejected the application of Miss Lavinia Goodell for admis- 
sion to the bar. E. G. Ryan was chief justice of the state at the time. 

"We cannot but think the common law wise in excluding 
women from the profession of the law," said the eminent jurist 
in the decree of refusal. "The profession enters largely into the 
well-being of society, and, to be honorably filled, and safely to- 
society, exacts the devotion of life. The law of nature destines and 
qualifies the female sex for the bearing and nurture of children of 
our race, and for the custody of the homes of the world and their 
maintenance in love and honor. And all life-long callings of 
women inconsistent with the order of nature, and when voluntary, 
are treason against it." 

A lobby of women convinced the next legislature that the views 
entertained by the chief justice were not founded on the rights 
of womankind, and a law was passed permitting women to practice 
law. Many Wisconsin women have availed themselves of the 
right thus obtained. 

In 1871, by legislative enactment, a college for women was 
added to the State University. 

Several unsuccessful attempts have been made to obtain from 
the legislature an order for the submission of a woman suffrage 
amendment to a vote of the people. Successive agitations have 
finally placed on the statute books a law permitting women to vote 
in school elections. In recent years a number of women have been 
chosen to serve as county superintendents of schools. 

Except as to the right of suffrage, the laws of Wisconsin do not 
discriminate against women, and the laws giving them property 
rights and rights as married women are regarded as in every way 
liberal. This is in marked contrast to the sentiments entertained 
fifty years ago, when one of five obnoxious articles that led to the 
rejection of the first constitution was that relating to the rights 
of married women. 



The Storij of the State. 283 

It was an evidence of the marvelous development of the state's 
great resources that but fifteen years after Wisconsin became a 
state there were 142 residents whose personal incomes exceeded 
$5,000 per annum each. From 1863 till 1872 the federal government 
exacted an income tax. A tax of 5 per cent, 'v^as levied on all 
incomes from $600 to $5,000, 7 per cent, on incomes from $5,000 
to $10,000, and 10 per cent, on incomes in excess of $10,000. 
Nineteen firms, according to sworn statements, did a business of 
more than half a million dollars annually, six others of more than 
a million dollars and three of two million dollars. In Miwaukee 
alone the tax upon all incomes in excess of $5,000 netted the gov- 
ernment $163,676. Some of the incomes, as the amounts were 
given under oath to the assessors, were evidence of the surprisingly 
large profits derived by business men during the war period and the 
years immediately following. Some of the larger ones are 
here given: 

Milwaukee— Alexander Mitchell, $132,000; L. H. Kellogg, 
$71,000; P. D. Armour, $50,000; B. P. Allis, $26,000; N. Engelmann, 
$30,000; M. D. Medberry, $36,000; John Nazro, $31,000; Guido 
Pfister, $34,000; Daniel Wells, Jr., $33,000; Fred Vogel, $34,000; 
Mark S. Tyson, $30,000; John Plankinton, $50,000; Rufus Allen, 
$21,000; Val. Blatz, $22,000; A. Green, $21,000; J. J. Higby, $20,000; 
G. G. Houghton, $22,000; R. P. Houghton, $22,000; Harrison Luding- 
ton, $22,000; James Ludington, $50,000; C. T. Bradley, $29,000; J. B. 
Martin, $33,000; W. H. Metcalf, $21,000. 

These were the incomes of $20,000 or more. But one brewer 
appears in the list. Elsewhere in the state the incomes were 
smaller, those reported at $10,000 or more being as follows: 

Kenosha— A. D. Loomis, $11,000; G. Truesdell, $10,000. 

Racine— Jerome I. Case, $10,000; James H. Kelley, $10,000; 
.Fred Weage, $17,000. 

Walworth— George Esterly, $40,000. 

Waukesha— Curtis Mann, $22,000. 

Notwithstanding the large individual incomes derived during 
the flush days of the period mentioned, it is doubtful if at that 
time there was a millionaire resident in Wisconsin. There are 
to-day forty or more men in the state who are counted owners of 
property worth a million dollars or more. It is an interesting fact 
that in every case the money has been made in Wisconsin, and 
that the men who amassed these fortunes, with few exceptions, came 
to the state without means. 

Immediately after the war railroad extension was carried on 
in the state at a remarkable rate. The attitute of the rail'foad 
magnates toward the people grew so arrogant that in a message to 
the legislature Gov. Cadwallader C. Washburn declared with 
emphasis that "many vast and overshadowing corporations in the 



284 Lcadinij Events of Vi'iaconsin History. 

United States are justly a source of alarm, and the legislature 
cannot scan too closely every measure that comes before it which 
proposes to give additional rights and privileges to the railways 
of the state." He further recommended that "the granting of 
passes to the class of state ofTicials who, through their public 
office, have power to confer or withhold benefits to a railroad com- 
pany, be prohibited." 

By failing to heed the warning thus given by the governor, 
the Republicans were swept from power at the next election by a 
combination of "Democrats, Liberal Republicans and other electors 
of Wisconsin friendly to genuine reform." One of the planks of 
the platform was a promise to "protect the people against every 
form of monopoly or extortion." 

The farmers considered themselves aggrieved by discrimina- 
tions in railroad charges. The hard times of 1873-74 were popu- 
larly accredited to the- dominant party. William R. Taylor, a 
Democrat, was elected governor. The pendulum of politics made 
the sweep to the other end of the arc, and the passage of the 
famous "Potter law" followed at the next legislative session. This 
was a drastic measure, limiting transportation charges and regu- 
lating prices for freight, creating a railroad commission and making 
stringent provision for general regulation of railroad traffic. The 
roalroad officials openly defied the provisions of the law, and the 
presidents of the two leading railroad corporations of the state 
served formal notice on the governor that they would disobey them. 

"The law of the land must be respected and obeyed," Gov. 
Taylor responded in a proclamation to the people, inspired by the 
defiant attitude of the railroad officials. Long litigation followed. 
It attracted attention all over the country on account of the 
important principles involved — the power of the state to control 
corporations of its own creation. The railroad companies were 
beaten in the state and federal courts, and were compelled to 
acknowledge submission. Subsequently the law was materially 
modified. 

Not a drop of rain fell in all Northern Wisconsin from the 8th 
day of July till the 9th day of October in the memorable year 1871 — 
the year of terrible havoc by forest fires. It was an unprecedented 
drouth; it needed but a spark to ignite the parched earth, and at 
times it seemed as if the friction of the heel was sufficient to start 
a blaze on the leaf-covered ground of the forests. Wells became dry, 
swamps disappeared, streams became mere rills and finally ceased 
to flow altogether. Here and there fires broke out and were pre- 
vented from spreading, with the greatest difficulty. All the inhab- 
itants of the neighborhoods turned out to fight the incipient blazes; 
incessant calls at all times of day and night soon exhausted their 
energies. Haystacks melted away and fences became long lines of 



The Story of the State. 285 



ashes. A pall of smoke overhung the doooned country. In the 
cities of Green Bay, De Pere, Appleton, Oconto, Marinette and 
Kewaunee, and in many further south along the lake shore, the 
smoke obscured the sight of buildings a few hundred feet away, 
and seriously affected the eyes and lungs of the people. On the 
lake it seemed as if an immense fog had settled permanently, so 
opaque that the sun could not be seen in the brazen sky. Railroad 
travel became dangerous, for bridges were crumbling and great 
trees that had been gnawed by fire fell across the tracks and across 
highways. Trains at times were prevented from taking fire by run- 
ning them at an increased speed. Finally the fires made such 
headway as to create consternation and panic among the inhabitants 
of Brown, Door, Oconto and Shawano counties. Many dug habita- 
tions in the ground, covered the roofs with earth and sought refuge 
in these burrows; others crept into the excavations where a few 
months before their wells had been. In all the northern towns vol- 
unteer brigades took such precautions as their facilities would per- 
mit; in Green Bay the fire engines kept their streams in constant 
play on the buildings. 

On the fateful 8th of October the smoke-laden atmosphere was 
so stifiing that breathing became a painful effort. A hot southerly 
gale carried the heated air in fitful blasts, and with it went flames 
that carried destruction to the hives of industries and prosperous 
farms along its path, and death to their people. The roaring flames 
pursued the fleeing men, women and children, and their charred 
bodies by the hundreds strewed the blackened pathways. More 
than a thousand lives were lost in this terrible holocaust. 

While the doomed city of Chicago was in flames, in Northern 
Wisconsin thousands of acres were on fire. It was a whirlwind of 
flame that human agency was powerless to resist. On the peninsula 
the greatest loss of life and destruction of property resulted. Hel-e, 
as elsewhere, were witnessed the most terrible scenes. 

"At Peshtigo," says the vivid account of the late C. D. Robinson 
of Green Bay, "hundreds were saved by throwing themselves into 
the river. In the Sugar Bush there was no stream deep enough for 
such refuge. Men, women and children, horses, oxen, cows, dogs, 
swine — everything that had life was seized with pain, and ran with- 
out method to escape the impending destruction. The smoke was 
suffocating and blinding, the roar of the tempest deafening, the 
atmosphere scorching; children were separated from their parents, 
and were trampled upon by the crazed beasts; husibands and wives 
were calling wildly for each other, and rushing in wild dismay they 
knew not where. Others, believing the day of judgment was surely 
come, fell upon the ground and abandoned themselves to its terrors. 
All the conditions of the prophecies seemed to be fulfilled. The hot 
atmosphere, filled with smoke, supplied the 'signs in the sun, and 



286 Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 

in the moon and in the stars'; the sound of the whirlwind was as 
'the sea and the waves roaring,' and everywhere there were 'men's 
hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things 
which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven shall be 
shaken.' Of the village of Peshtigo there was not a vestige left 
standing except one unfinished house. Kewaunee, Ahnapee and 
Sturgeon Bay were sorely pressed, but were saved." 

But for prompt measures of relief, the horrors of starvation 
would have equaled those of the conflagration. From all parts of 
the country came substantial contributions, about a quarter of a 
million dollars of it in cash. From every county and nearly every 
city, village and neighborhood of Wisconsin came carloads of food 
and clothing. Messengers went afoot through the burned district, 
carrying provisions, and physicians supplied with medicines and 
liniments went with them. 

Other destructive fires in Wisconsin include the following: At 
Oshkosh, April 28, 1875; Marshfield, June 27, 1887; Iron River, July 
27, 1892; Milwaukee, October 30, 1891 (a large section of the east 
side devastated); Fifield, July 27, 1893; Phillips, July 27, 1894. 

The most destructive cyclones and tornadoes that have visited 
the state were those at Racine, in 1883, which wrecked a hundred 
homes, killed nine persons and injured seventy-five others; at 
Hazel Green twenty years before that time, when the fatalities were 
the same, and at Viroqua in 1865. A summary of the principal 
cyclonic visitations is here given: 

Viroqua, June, 1S65, seventeen persons killed, 150 injured and many build- 
ings demolished. 

Hazel Green, August, 1872, nine lives lost and great destruction of property- 
caused in farming communities. 

Green Lake, July, 1873, severe hurricane in Green Lake county; eleven per- 
sons drowned in Green lake by the capsizing of boats. 

La Crosse, July, 1875, funnel-shaped cyclone 600 feet in vi^idth. 

Pensaukee, July, 1877, funnel-shaped, 1,000 feet in width; eight persons 
killed and property damaged to the extent of $300,000. 

Wautoma, July, 1877, funnel-shaped; very destructive. 

Mineral Point, May, 1878, inverted cone, width ranging from 700 to 10,000 
feet; terrific roaring noise and immense destruction of property. 

Beloit, April, 1880, several persons killed and $75,000 property loss; every 
church steeple in the city hurled to the ground. 

Shopiere, April, 1880, funnel form, 500 to 1,000 feet wide; twenty-three build- 
ings demolished. 

Monroe county, June, 1880, shaped like an hour-glass; tremendous roaring 
noise; widespread destruction in farming districts. 

Wauwatosa, September, 1881, funnel-shaped, 2,000 feet in width; clouds like 
great sheets of white smoke dashed about in the wildest manner; more appalling 
to the sight than destructive in effects. 

Lind, September, 1881, funnel form. 

Montana, September, 1881, 1,000 to 1,500 feet wide; great property damage 
caused. 

Racine, May, 1883, 100 houses razed to the ground; nine persons killed and 
seventy-five injured. 



The Story of the State. 287 



The English traveler Jonathan Carver, who made his famous 
journey to the Wisconsin region in 1766, describes in his narrative 
the effects of a cyclone in the Chippewa river country. The elements 
cut a path through the tangled virgin forest as clean and well- 
defined as ever did the axes of pioneers. 

The record of great disasters would not be complete without 
mention of the loss of life on the lake. That which cast a gloom 
over the people of the entire state — although Milwaukee families 
were affected principally — was the loss of the steamer Lady Elgin, 
which occurred Sept. 8, 1860. Of the 400 excursionists who left 
Milwaukee for a trip to Chicago, 225 found death in the waters. 
While the excursionists were gaily dancing or otherwise enjoying 
themselves, a fog settled over the surface of the lake and the Lady 
Elgin collided with the schooner Augusta. This was at a point 
opposite Winnetka Point, several miles from land. Some of the 
frantic passengers, as the vessel began to sink, jumped into the 
waves without method or reason; others crowded into the boats, 
and in the confusion swamped them; some tore away portions of 
the hurricane deck and a few floated to the Shore on these impro- 
vised rafts. For many days following the disaster, bodies of the 
unfortunate passengers were cast upon the shore. The statement 
has been made that there was scarcely a family in the Third ward 
of the city of Milwaukee that did not mourn a missing member. 

Following are the principal disasters since the war, on the lake 
and inland: 

April 8, 1868, burning of the Sea Bird on Lake Michigan; aU of the passen- 
gers and crew lost but two. 

Sept. 14, 1873, steamer Ironsides wrecked between Milwaukee and Grand 
Haven; twenty-eight persons lost their lives. 

Jan. 10, 1883, burning of the Newhall house in Milwaukee, the coroner's 
jury rendering a verdict that the Are was of incendiary origin. Eighty persons 
perished in this fire. 

October, 1886, wreck at East Rio of the limited express of the Chicago, Mil- 
waukee & St. Paul company; fifteen persons incinerated in the burning cars. 

Nov. 8, 1883, fall of the south wing of the capitol at Madison, during process 
of construction; seven of the workmen hurried in the debris. 

Oct. 29, 1887, sinking of the Vernon off Two Rivers, and every member of 
the crew but one drowned; a score of the bodies recovered by the crew of the life 
saving station. Thirty lives were lost. 

May 18, 1894, the schooner Cummings foundered in shallow water In Mil- 
waukee bay and six persons lost their lives. Thousands of persons on shore wit- 
nessed the futile efforts of the life-savers to rescue the sailors who climbed into 
the rigging when the boat sank. 

April 20, 1893, during a terrific storm fifteen workmen on the intake crib, 
off Milwaukee, lost their lives. They were forced to leave the air chamber of 
the crib because of the foul air, and as they opened the lock the waves dashed 
in, filled the well with water, and all but one of the workmen were drowned. 

January, 1895, unexplained disappearance of the propeller Chicora, which 
left Milwaukee for St. Joseph with a crew of twenty-five men and two passen- 
gers. It is believed that she sprang a leak during a fierce blizzard and went to 
the bottom. 

During the days of wildcat banking in territorial times, the 
people of Wisconsin sustained heavy losses; they suffered reverses 
when the hard times of 1873 swept over the country; but the 
climax of commercial adversity overtook them in 1893. The business 
panic of that year, which swept from one end of the country to 



288 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



the other, engulfed about 200 commercial houses In this state, and 
two scores of banks were forced to close their doors. The panic 
began with a run on the banks, and the exciting scenes of disap- 
pointed depositors demanding admittance through doors that were 
closed were an almost daily occurrence during the month of July. 
The banks toppled like a house built of cards when the runs 
were in progress; securities that had been considered worth mil- 
lions shrank to thou.iands in actual value. In Milwaukee, five 
banks closed their doors; the Wisconsin Marine bank, popularly 
known as Mitchell's, was one of them. It had stood as the rock 
of Gibraltar since the early days of the territory, and when payment 
stopped across its counters, the gloom deepened in the business 
circles of the entire state. The five Milwaukee banks that failed 
had $13,700,000 of assets and but $11,700,000 of liabilities, and two 
of them — one of them Mitchell's bank — resumed business when the 




Gen. Lucius Fairchild. 



panic subsided. In but one instance was brazen dishonesty the 
cause of the wreck, and the culprit was sent to the penitentiary. 
Dishonesty of management was also charged in a few instances 
In other cities of the state, but on the whole unforseen and 
unavoidable conditions contributed mainly to the business disasters 
of the year. The stoiin cleared the business atmosphere and 
eventually led to more wholesome financial methods in commer- 
cial life. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

IN THE REALM OF POLITICS. 

Owing to the mistaken policy of its people in displacing their 
-congressional representatives as soon as they become experienced 
legislators, Wisconsin does not occupy the important place in the 
annals of national politics which the ability of its statesmen would 
otherwise have earned. Another reason why its influence in 
national affairs has been minimized is that in but one presidential 
campaign during the past half century has its electoral vote been 
regarded as a determining factor. Residence in pivotal states is 
of immense advantage to aspiring politicians, and has often enabled 
men of mediocre ability to secure precedence over other men 
whose native talent was ignored to serve party expediency. 

Reverting to the first cause, a list of Wisconsin's 166 congres- 
sional representatives shows that only seven have been reelected 
more than twice. The Southern policy of retaining the services 
of congressmen long enough to derive the benefit of ripened 
experience in debate and legislation long enabled the minority from 
south of Mason and Dixon's line to cope successfully with the 
numerical preponderence in opposition. The seven Wisconsin 
congressmen who served more than three terms each were: C. C. 
Washburn, Amasa Cobb, Nils P. Haugen, four terms each; Philetus 
Sawyer, Charles G. Williams, five terms each; Charles A. Eldredge, 
six terms; Lucien B. Caswell, seven terms. 

Despite the causes which have operated to diminish Wisconsin's 
influence in national affairs, there have been occasions when 
opportunities have come and have been taken to strike the keynote 
for the nation. In the early days of statehood a few determined 
men aided immensely in creating public sentiment on the slavery 
question by their courageous attitude in behalf of a cause then 
unpopular; the incidents connected with the rescue of a fugitive 
slave and the ringing declaration of the Wisconsin Supreme court 
justices on that occasion have been told. Pamphlets containing the 
forceful arguments of Byron Paine and the emphatic conclusions 
of Justice Smith were sold by the thousands on the streets of Boston. 

When the Greenback theory was sweeping all before it in the 
agricultural Northwest in the '70's, and politicians of all parties 
seemed eager to crook the pregnant hinges of the knee to the 
"rag baby," one man's courageous attitude in opposition changed 
the current of events. While his party associates chattei-ed with 
fear, Horace Rublee committed his party to advocacy of sound 
money. This attitute appealed with irresistible force to the Ger- 
mans, ever averse to financial methods that to them might appear 

289 



290 



Leading Events of Wiseonsin History. 



questionable. What seemed a hopeless undertaking became a 
triumphant reality, the fiat money cause was hopelessly wrecked 
in this state and eventually in the entire Northwest. 

More recently, when the issue of silver money became a 
dominant one in politics, Wisconsin Democrats took the lead in the 
organization of a new party — the National Democracy. In propor- 
tion to number of votes, the largest majority against the free 
coinage of silver 'cast by any state was that given by Wisconsin. 
But for the unfounded belief that Illinois was a doubtful state 
and that the standard-bearer should therefore be selected from 




STAND BY IT! 



"The Little Red Schoolhouse." 

(Emblematic Device Used in Political Literature and on Banners During the 
Exciting Bennett Law Campaign of 1890.) 



that state, Gen. Edward S. Bragg of V\''isconsin would have been 
the presidential nominee of the National Democrats. In the 
Indianapolis convention of 1896 delegates from fourteen states 
expressed their preference for him. 

In national party conventions, both Republicans and Democrats 
of this state have on numerous occasions attracted the attention 
of the country. In the Republican convention of 1880, made mem- 
orable by Grant's solid phalanx of 306 supporters, Wisconsin led 
the stampede that resulted in the nomination of James A. Garfield 
for president. The battle of ballots had been in progress a full 
week when the break came unexpectedly, the Wisconsin delega- 



Tlie Story of the State. 291 



tion's conclusion to vote for Garfield having been reached while 
the balloting was in progress. The incident is thus told by A. J. 
Turner, one of the delegates: 

"When the vote of Wisconsin was announced, the turmoil that 
had reigned supreme for a time was hushed for the moment as 
if in the stillness of death, and every eye was turned toward the 
Wisconsin delegation as if to inquire, 'What does that mean?' It is 
absolutely certain that no delegate outside of our own delegation 
suspected that anything of the sort was about to happen. They 
could not have done so, for we did not know we were going to 
do it ourselves scarcely a moment before. In a moment tue galleries 
and the convention itself were in the wildest uproar. It is doubtful 
if any such scene ever occurred in a convention before. The 
popular chord had been touched as if by the wand of a magician. 
Gren. Garfield, pale and dumbfounded, arose from his seat and 
challenged the right of any delegate to vote for him without his 
consent, a consent he had not given. 

"When it seemed likely that the entire convention was about 
to be stampeded to Gen. Garfield, Gen. Beaver of Pennsylvania, 
the grim and grizzly one-legged old soldier that he was, mounted 
his seat, and resting upon his crutch, waved his hand and gave 
the word of command to the immortal '306': 'Grant men, steady, 
steady!' The watchword was immediately taken up by the followers 
of the great commander, and quietly they passed the word: 'Grant 
men, steady!' down their lines, and the column was firm once 
more as the rock of Chickamauga, and gave ample evidence of 
Gen. Beaver's soldierly qualities when receiving the charge of a 
Confederate legion, such an one as Gen. Mahone would have led 
against his lines. It was inexpressibly grand. 

"What followed every one knows. Gen. Garfield was nomi- 
nated and triumphantly elected." 

In the Republican convention of 1888 the Wisconsin delegation 
cast a solid vote for Jeremiah M. Rusk for presidential nominee. 
The time was not auspicious for a Wisconsin candidate, despite 
the personal sentiment for the good gray governor of Wisconsin. 
The politicians were seeking a candidate in one of the doubtful 
states. At a critical moment in the balloting, the Wisconsin 
delegation added its votes to the column for Benjamin Harrison, 
and nominated him. Wisconsin, being the last state called in the 
alphabetical roll of states, was enabled to avail itself of this point 
of vantage to determine the result. 

In the Democratic convention of 1884, William P. Vilas was 
chosen permanent chairman. In that capacity it became his duty 
to notify Grover Cleveland of his nomination. So well impressed 
was the latter with the address of the Wisconsin orator that when 
he became president he chose Col. Vilas as a member of his official 



292 Leading Events of Wisconsin Histonj. 

family. It was in the course of this convention that Gen. Edward 
S. Bragg's stinging allusion to the Tammany contingent created 
a furore that led to, if it was not the immediate cause of, Grover 
Cleveland's nomination: "We love him for the enemies lie 
has made." 

Twelve years later, in Democratic national convention, it was 
again Gen. Bragg who spoke for his party associates from Wiscon- 
sin, and this time his words were prophetic of doom. The silver 
men had carried the day, and the Wisconsin delegation had de- 
clined to vote. Gen. Bragg jumped upon a chair and facing the 
great audience he seemed a prophet of disaster, as he cried: 

"Wisconsin will fight under another banner and for another 
candidate." 

Gen. Zachary Taylor, elected president of the United States in 
1848, was stationed in Wisconsin as an army officer during the 
territorial days, but was never a resident of the state. Matthew 
Hale Carpenter was elected president of the United States senate 
in 1873, and served during the session of the forty-third congress. 
Four presidents have chosen Wisconsin men for members of their 
cabinets. The portfolios held by them are here given: 

Alexander W. Randall, postmaster-general in the cabinet of President John- 
son, promoted from assistant postmaster-general upon the resignation of William 
Denninson. 

Timothy O. Howe, postmaster-general in the cabinet of Chester A. Arthur 
from Dec. 20, 1S81, till his death in March, 1SS3. 

William F. Vilas, postmaster-general in Grover Cleveland's first cabinet, 
beginning March 5, 1SS5; appointed secretary of interior upon the promotion of 
Lucius Q. C. Lamar to the bench. 

Jeremiah M. Rusk, secretary of agriculture in Benjamin Harrison's cabinet, 
serving during the entire administration. He was the first secretary of the- 
department after its conversion from a bureau to a cabinet position. 

Some important posts in the diplomatic service have been held 
by Wisconsin men, among them these: 

Carl Schurz, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Spain; 
appointed by President Lincoln in 1861. 

Alexander W. Randall, minister at Rome; appointed by President Lincoln. 

Rufus King, minister resident at Rome; appointed by President Lincoln. 

Horace Rublee, minister resident at Berne, Switzerland; appointed by Pres- 
ident Grant in 1870; resigned to resume editorial work in Wisconsin. 

Lucius Fairchild, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to 
Spain; appointed by President Hayes. . ^ . 

Rasmus B. Anderson, minister resident at Copenhagen, Denmark; appointed 
by President Cleveland. . 

John Hicks, minister extraordinary and envoy plenipotentiary to Peru; 
appointed by President Harrison. 

Edward S. Bragg, minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary to 
Mexico; appointed by President Cleveland. „ .j ^ 

Ernst Dichman, minister resident in Columbia; appointed by President 

Hayes. , „ . . , 

Mortimer M. Jackson, consul-general to the British maritime provinces; 
appointed by President Hayes, after many years of service as consul at Halifax. 

Julius Goldschmidt, consul-general at Vienna; appointed by President Har- 
rison; consul-general at Berlin, appointed by President McKinley. 

Richard Guenther, consul-general at the City of Mexico; appointed by Pres- 
ident Harrison. ■, ^ 

Wendell A. Anderson, consul-general at Montreal; appointed by President 
Cleveland in 1885 and again in 1893. , ., „ . 

Jeremiah Curtin, secretary of legation at St. Petersburg, while Cassius M. 
Clay was minister at the court of the czar. 

William Rufus Finch, minister resident at Paraguay, appointed by Presi- 
dent McKinley 



The Fitoni of the State. 



193 



Jos. G. Donnelly, consul-general at Nueva Laredo, Mexico; appointed by 
President Cleveland. 

Consuls — John F. Potter, at Montreal; Charles Seymour, Canton; Thos. B. 
Reid, Punchal, Portugal; Frank Leland, Hamilton, Can.; Evan R. Jones, New- 
castle, Eng. ; W. W. Robinson, Tamatave, Madagascar; Chester E. Jackson, 
Antigua; William B. West, Gahvay; Hiram Tuttle, Montevideo; R. P. McBride, 
Leith, Scotland; Carl Jonas, Prague and St. Petersburg; Roger Spooner, Prague; 
William A. Rublee, Prague; Walter B. Gardner, Rotterdam; A. J. Reid, Dublin; 
Peter V. Deuster, Crefeld; George Keenan, Bremen; George R. Ernst, Reichen- 
berg; F. W. Kickbusch, Stettin; David C. Davis, Swansea, Wales; O. E. Dreutzer, 
Bergen, Norway; Edw. Cramer, Florence; Chas. W. Merriman, Brockville, Ont. ; 
Daniel E. McGinley, Athens. 

Charles Seymour is one of the oldest consuls in the diplomatic 
service. He went from La Crosse tO' Canton, China, in Grant's last 
administration and has served continuously since. During the 
anti-Christian riots, a number of years ago, it was due to his 




William Dempster Hoard. 
Governor, 1883-1891. 



energy and forethought that many Caucasian residents of the 
Orient city were saved from the fury of the Chinese fanatics. 

After many years of consular service at Cardiff, Wales, Evan 
R. Jones resigned his post a few years ago, stood for election to 
parliament and was successful. Carl Schurz was another diplomat 
who never returned to the state whence he was appointed. He 
took up his residence in Missouri after the war, served as United 
States senator and became secretary of interior in the cabinet of 
President Hayes. He was the last cabinet officer of foreign birth, 
the new law of presidential succession rendering citizens of foreign 
birth ineligible for cabinet positions. 



294 



Leading Ecoiis of Wisconsin History. 



The people of Wisconsin have voted in thirteen presidential 
elections, their preference on these several occasions as shown by 
the popular vote having been respectively for Lewis Cass, Dem.. 
Franklin Pierce, Dem.; John C. Fremont, Rep.; Abraham Lincoln, 
Rep. (twice); Ulyssus S. Grant, Rep. (twice); Rutherford B. Hayes, 
Rep.; James A. Garfield, Rep.; James G. Blaine, Rep.; Benjamin 
Harrison, Rep.; Grover Cleveland, Dem.; William McKinley, Rep. 

The electoral vote of the state was cast three times for an 
unsuccessful presidential candidate; Lewis Cass, John C. Fremont, 
and James G. Blaine. 

There have been eighteen governors of the state during its 
half-century of political existence, and eleven of them were natives 
of either New York or Connecticut. The first nine were young 
men, none of them more than 45 years of age, and four of these 
not older than 35 — while all of the last nine governors had passed 
the half-century milestone. When Wisconsin became a state, its 
population was made up largely of young men — a vigorous, ener- 
getic and intellectual group of pioneers, and naturally they were 
at the fore in public affairs. During the last quarter century the 
■conservatism that maturity brings has shown its infiuence in 
politics as in other channels of life. The list of Wisconsin's 
governors is as follows: 



Term of 
service. 

Nelson Dewey, Dem 4 years 

Leonard James Farwell, Whig 2 years 

Wm. Augustus Barstow, Dem 2 years 

Coles Bashford, Rep 2 years 

Alexander Williams Randall, Rep 4 years 

Louis Powell Harvey, Rep 3 mos. 

Edward Salomon, Rep lyr. 9 m. 

James Taylor Lewis, Rep 2 years 

Lucius Fairchild, Rep 6 years 

Cadwallader Coldoon Washburn, Rep 2 years 

William Robert Taylor, Dem 2 years 

Harrison Ludington, Rep 2 years 

William E. Smith, Rep 4 years 

Jeremiah McLain Rusk, Rep 7 years 

William Dempster Hoard, Rep 2 years 

George Wilbur Peck, Dem 4 years 

William Henry Upham, Rep 2 years 

Edward Scofield, Rep 2 years 





Age at 


Resi- 


Place of time of 


dence. 


birth. elect'n. 


Lancaster 


Connecticut 


35 


Madison 


New York 


33 


Waukesha 


Connecticut 


41 


Oshkosh 


New York 


40 


Waukesha 


New York 


Z9 


Shopiere 


Connecticut 


42 


Milwaukee 


Prussia 


34 


Columbus 


New York 


45 


Madison 


Ohio 


35 


La Crosse 


Maine 


54 


Cottage Grove 


Connecticut 


54 


Milwaukee 


New York 


64 


Milwaukee 


Scotland 


54 


Viroqua 


Ohio 


52 


Ft. Atkinson 


New York 


63 


Milwaukee 


New York 


51 


Marshfield 


Massachusetts 53 


Oconto 


Pennsylvania 


54 



Several gubernatorial candidates were elected by narrow mar- 
gins when their party associates "fell outside the breastworks." 
These were: Farwell, Whig, in 1851, 507 majority; Bashford, Rep., 
in 1855, 1,009 majority; Randall, Rep., 1857, 454 majority; Ludington, 
Rep., in 1875, 841 majority. The unsuccessful candidates for gover- 
nor comprise the following list: 

Whigs— John H. Tweedy, 1848; A. L. Collins, 18-19; Henry S. Baird, 1853; E. 
D. Holton (Abolitionist), 1853. ^ ,„„„ ^ ^ 

Republicans— C. C. Washburn, 1873; William D. Hoard, 1890; John C. 
Spooner, 1892. ^„^_ ^ „ „ 

Democrats— Don A. J. Upham, 1851; William A. Barstow, 185o; J. B. Cross, 
1857; Harrison C. Hobart, 1859 and 1865; Benjamin Ferguson, 1861; Henry L. 
Palmer, 1863; J. J. Tallmadge, 1867; C. D. Robinson, 1869; James R. Doolittle. 



The Story of the State. 295 



1871; William R. Taylor, 1875; James A. Mallory, 1877; James G. Jenkins. 1879- 
Nicholas D. Fratt, 1S82 and 18S-1; Gilbert M. Woodward, 1886; James Morgan 1888- 
George W. Peck, 1894; W. C. Silverthorn, 1896. 

Greenbackers— Edw. P. Allis, 1S77 and 1882; Reuben May, 1879; William L 
Utley, 1884. 

Populists— John Cochrane, 1886; D. Frank Powell, 1SS8; Reuben May 1890- 
C. M. Butt, 1892; D. F. Powell, 1894. 

Prohibitionists— Theo. D. Kanouse, ISSO; Samuel D. Hastings, 1884- John M 
Olin, 1S86; E. G. Durant, 1SS8; Charles Alexander, 1890; T. C. Richmond 1892- 
John F. Cleghorn, 1894; Joshua H. Berkey, 3896. 

Socialist— Colin Campbell, 1877; Christ. Tuttrop, 1896. 

Nationalist— Robert Henderson, 1896. 

The Supreme court was not separately organized until 1853; 
previous to that year the judges of the Circuit courts were ex-officit> 
justices of the Supreme court. Following jurists have served 
as members of this tribunal: 

Chief Justices— Alexander W. Stow, Levi Hubbell, Edward V. Whiton, 
Luther S. Dixon, Edward G. Ryan, Orsamus Cole, William Penn Lyon, Harlow 
S. Orton, John B. Ca.ssoday. 

Associate Justices— Charles H. Larrabee, Mortimer M. Jackson, Timothy O. 
Howe, Hiram Knowlton, Samuel Crawford, Abram D. Smith, Byron Paine, Jason 
Downer, David Taylor, John B. Winslow, Silas U. Pinney, Alfred W. Newman, 
Roujet D. Marshall. 

Senatorial honors have been conferred by the legislature.^ of 
the state upon eleven men — four of them Democrats and seven 
Republicans. James R. Doolittle was twice elected as a Republican, 
and during his second term became a Democrat. He had been a 
Democrat up to six years previous to his first election. Matthew 
H. Carpenter was also a recent convert from Democracy when he 
became United States senator. Timothy O. Howe was the only 
United States senator from Wisconsin who served three terms, 
seven served two terms each, and fcur :were retired upon the 
expiration of their first term. 

But one of the senators from Wisconsin was born in this state; 
none of them were of foreign birth. This is also true of the 
eighteen governors of the state with two exceptions: William E. 
Smith, Who was born in Scotland, and Edward Salomon, who was 
born in Germany. The list of United States senators who have 
represented Wisconsin, with place of nativity and residence at 
time of election, is as follows: 

Isaac P. Walker, Dem., of Milwaukee, elected June 8, 1848, and reelected 
Jan. 17, 1849; born in Virginia in 1813. 

Henry Dodge, Dem., of Dodgeville, elected June 8, 1848, and reelected Jan. 
20, 1851; born in Indiana in 1782. 

Charles Durkee, Rep., of Kenosha, elected Feb. 1, 1855; born in Vermont 
in 1805. 

James R. Doolittle, Rep., of Racine, elected Jan. 23, 1857, and reelected Jan. 
22, 1863; born in New York in 1815. 

Timothy O. Howe, Rep., of Green Bay, elected Jan. 23, 1861, and reelected 
Jan. 24, 1867, and again Jan. 21, 1873; born in Maine, in 1816, where he served 
in the legislature previous to coming to Wisconsin.. 

Matthew Hale Carpenter, Rep., of Milwaukee, elected Jan. 26, 1869, and 
again Jan. 22, 1879; born in Vermont in 1824. 

Angus Cameron, Rep., of La Crosse, elected Feb. 3, 1875, and again March 
10, 1881; born in New York in 1826. 

Philetus Sawyer, Rep., of Oshkosh, elected Jan. 26, 1881, and again Jan. 

26, 1887; born in Vermont in 1816. 

John Coit Spooner, Rep., of Hudson, elected Jan. 28, 1885, and again Jan. 

27, 1897; born in Indiana in 1843. 



296 LradliKj Erciits of Wiseoiifiin Eistory. 

William Freeman Vilas, Dem., of Madison, elected Jan. 28, 1891; born in 
Vermont in 1S40. 

John Lendrum Mitchell, Dem., of Milwaukee, elected Jan. 26, 1S93; born 
in Wisconsin in 1S42. 

Some of the contests for senator attracted attention all over 
the country. In 1861 Timothy O. Howe, C. C. Washburn and 
Alexander Randall were contestants. It was a battle of giants. 
Randall's withdrawal elected Howe. Pour years before Timothy 
Howe had shown himself a statesman and not a truckling politi- 
cian. He could have been elected then had he yielded to the 
popular clamor and subscribed to the Calhoun doctrine of states' 
rights. Like Henry Clay, he would rather be right than be presi- 
dent, and without qualification he declared that the doctrine was 
wrong and full of danger to the Union — and he was defeated. 
His election in 1861 was a grand vindication. For eighteen years 
the people of Wisconsin kept him in the United States senate — the 
longest term in congress served by any Wisconsin representative 
except Philetus Sawyer, who spent ten years in the lower branch 
and twelve in the upper house of congress. The election of Judge 
HoTve created immense enthusiasm all over the state. In Mil- 
waukee, Green Bay and elsewhere, guns were fird in honor of 
the event. 

The novelty of a competitive oratorical contest was introduced 
in the election of 1869. The candidates were Edward Salomon, 
Matt H. Carpenter, Horace Rublee, C. C. Washburn and 0. H. 
Waldo. The suggestion came from the friends of Carpenter, who 
had faith in the persuasive fascination of his oratory. A great 
meeting was held in the assembly chamber and four candidates 
made speeches. Whether the speeches influenced the legislators 
or not is problematical. Matt H. Carpenter was elected by a 
narrow margin. 

When Carpenter sought reelection, in 1875, there ensued the 
most bitter senatorial contest in the history of the state. He had 
voted for the notorious congressional salary grab, and had defended 
his vote in a public speech. The Republican caucus chose him as 
its nominee, but enough Republicans bolted to prevent his election. 
The Carpenter phalanx stood firm to the bitter end, and a deadlock 
ensued. A coalition of the Democrats and Republican bolters was 
attempted in the interest of Judge Orsamus Cole, but a minority 
of the Democrats would not enter it on the gi'ound that Judge 
Cole had shown hostility to the liquor interests. Finally a com- 
bination wa« effected in favor of Angus Cameron, of La Crosse, 
who was elected. Four years later Carpenter again secured the 
election after a bitter campaign. It was a notable triangular 
contest, and more than a hundred ballots were taken, during many 
sessions of the Republicans in caucus, before Carpenter triumphed. 

In 1881 two senatorial elections occurred. Senator Carpenter's 
death while the legislature was in session creating a vacancy, and 



The Story of the State. 297 



the expiration of Cameron's term anotlier. Philetus Sawyer easily 
defeated E. W. Keyes for the long term, to succeed Cameron. 
When Carpenter died, a contest of unparalleled rivalry was devel- 
oped. For many days the Republican caucus balloted fruitlessly. 
It was the winter of deep snows, and part of the time the legis- 
lators were snowbound at the capital, and delegations of lohbyists 
were unable to reach them. Among the candidates voted for were 
E. W. Keyes, Angus Cameron, Luther S. Dixon, J. M. Bingham, 
George C Hazelton, C. G Williams, William T Price, D. M. Kelly. 
J. V. Quarles, Charles L. Colby, Jonathan Bowman. Finally the 
battle became a joint attack of all the elements opposing Angus 
Cameron. The opposition united on Jonathan Bowman of Kilbourn 
City. The final vote resulted: Angus Cameron, 51; Jonathan 
Bowman, 49. For the second time Angus Cameron became United 
States senator after a candidacy of less than a week. 

The first two senators were! Democrats. Not until 1891 did the 
Democrats elect another. Mr. Vilas was chosen without opposition, 
but two years later there was a bitter contest between John L. 
Mitchell, J. H. Knight and E. S. Bragg. It attracted national atten- 
tion, chiefly owing to the reputation of Gen Bragg. 

When Wisconsin became a state its representatives in congress 
numbered only four — two in each house. Its delegation in the house 
of representatives is now ten. Following is a list of the men who 
have occupied seats in the lower branch of congress as representa- 
tives from this state, the districts represented being given in 
numerical order: 

Thirtieth Congress (1847-49)— William Pitt Lynde, Dem.; Mason C. Darling, 
Dem. 

Thirty-first Congress (1849-51)— Charles Durltee, Free-soiler; Orsamus Cole, 
Whig; James Duane Doty, Dem. 

Thirty-second Congress (1851-53)^Charles Durkee. Ind. ; Benjamin C. East- 
man, Dem. ; John B. Macy, Dem. 

Thirty-third Congress (1853-55) — Daniel Wells, Jr., Dem.; Benjamin C. East- 
man, Dem. : John B. Macy, Dem. 

Thirty-fourth Congress (1855-57)— Daniel Wells, Jr., Dem.; Cadwellader C. 
Washburn, Rep. ; Charles Billinghurst, Dem. 

Thirty-fifth Congress (1857-59)— John F. Potter, Rep.; C. C. Washburn, 
Rep. ; Charles Billinghurst, Dem. 

Thirty-sixth Congress (1859-61)— John F. Potter, Rep.; C. C. W^ashburn, 
Rep. ; Charles H. Larrabee, Dem. 

Thirty-seventh Congress (1861-63)— John F. Potter, Rep.; Luther Hanchett, 
Rep. (died Nov. 24, 1862, and Walter D. Mclndoe, Rep., elected to fill vacancy); 
A. Scott Sloan, Rep. 

Thirty-eighth Congress (1863-65)— James S. Brown, Dem.; Ithamar C. 
Sloan, Rep.; Amasa Cobb, Rep.; Charles A. Eldredge, Dem.; Ezra Wheeler, 
Dem. ; Walter D. Mclndoe, Rep. 

Thirty-ninth Congress (1865-67)— Halbert E. Paine, Rep.; I. C. Sloan, Rep.; 
Amasa Cobb, Rep. ; Charles A. Eldredge, Dem. ; Philetus Sawyer, Rep. ; Walter 
D. Mclndoe, Rep. 

Fortieth Congress (1867-69)— Halbert E. Paine, Rep.; Benjamin F. Hopkins, 
Rep. ; Amasa Cobb, Rep. ; Charles A. Eldredge, Dem. ; Philetus Sawyer, Rep. ; 
C. C. Washburn, Rep. 

Forty-first Congress (1869-71)— Halbert C. Paine, Rep.; Benjamin F. Hop- 
kins, Rep. (died Jan. 1, 1870, and David Atwood, Rep., elected to fill vacancy); 
Amasa Cobb, Rep.; Charles A. Eldredge, Dem.; Philetus Sawyer, Rep.; C. C. 
W^ashburn, Rep. 

Forty-second Conogress (1871-73)— Alexander Mitchell, Dem. ; Gerry W. 
Hazelton, Rep. ; J. Allen Barber, Rep. ; Charles A. Eldredge, Dem. ; Philetus 
Sawyer, Rep. ; Jeremiah M. Rusk, Rep. 



298 Leading Events of Wiseonsiii History. 

Forty-third Congress (1873-75)— Charles G. Williams, Rep. ; Gerry W. Hazel- 
ton, Rep.; J. Allen Barber, Rep.: Alexander Mitchell, Dem. ; Charles A. Eld- 
redge. Dem. ; Philetus Sawyer, Rep. ; Jeremiah M. Rusk, Rep. ; Alexander S. 
McDill, Rep. 

Forty-fourth Congress (1875-77)— Charles G. Williams, Rep. ; Lucien B. 
Caswell, Rep. ; Henry S. Magoon, Rep. ; William Pitt Lynde, Dem. ; Samuel D. 
Burchard, Dem.; Alanson M. Kimball, Rep.; Jeremiah M. Rusk, Rep.; George 
W. Gate, Dem. 

Forty-fifth Congress (1877-79)— Charles G. Williams, Rep.; Lucien B. Cas- 
well, Rep.; George C. Hazelton, Rep.; William Pitt Lynde, Dem.; Edward S. 
Bragg, Dem.; Gabriel Bouck, Dem.; Herman L. Humphrey, Rep.; Thaddeus 
C. Pound, Rep. 

Forty-sixth Congress (1879-81) — Charles G. Williams, Rep. ; Lucien B. Cas- 
well, Rep.; George C. Hazelton, Rep.; Peter V. Deuster, Dem.; Edward S. 
Bragg, Dem. ; Gabriel Bouck, Dem. ; Herman L. Humphrey, Rep. ; Thaddeus 
C Pound, Rep. 

Forty-seventh Congress (1881-83)- Charles G. Williams, Rep.; Lucien B. 
Caswell, Rep. ; Geo. C. Hazelton, Rep. ; Peter V. Deuster, Dem. ; Edward S. 
Bragg, Dem. ; Richard Guenther, Rep. ; Herman L. Humphrey, Rep. ; Thaddeus 
C Pound, Rep. 

Forty-eighth Congress (1883-85) — John Winans, Dem. ; Daniel H. Sumner, 
Dem. ; Burr W. Jones, Dem. ; Peter V. Deuster, Dem. ; Joseph Rankin, Dem. ; 
■Gilbert M. Woodward, Dem.; William T. Price, Rep.; Isaac Stephenson, Rep. 

Forty-ninth Congress (1885-87) — Lucien B. Caswell, Rep. ; Edward S. Bragg, 
Dem.; Robert M. La Follette, Rep.; Isaac W. Van Schaick, Rep.; Joseph Rankin, 
Dem. (died Jan. 24, 1886, and Thomas R. Hudd, Dem., elected in his place); 
Richard Guenther, Rep. ; Ormsby B. Thomas, Rep. ; William T. Price, Rep. 
(died Dec. 7, 1866, and Hugh H. Price elected in his place) ; Isaac Stephenson, 
Rep. 

Fiftieth Congress (1887-89)— Lucien B. Caswell, Rep.; Richard Guenther, 
Rep.; Robert La Follette, Rep.; Henry Smith, Populist; Thomas R. Hudd, Dem.; 
Charles B. Clark, Rep.; Ormsby B. Thomas, Rep.; Nils P. Haugen, Rep.; 
Isaac Stephenson, Rep. 

Fifty-first Congress (1889-91) — Lucien B. Caswell, Rep. ; Charles Barwig, 
Dem. ; Robert M. La Follette, Rep. ; Isaac W. Van Schaick, Rep. ; George H. 
Brickner, Dem.; Charles B. Clark, Rep.; Ormsby B. Thomas, Rep.; Nils P. 
Haugen, Rep.; Myron H. McCord, Rep. 

Fifty-second Congress (1891-93) — Clinton Babbitt, Dem. ; Charles Barwig, 
Dem.; Allen M. Bushnell, Dem.; John L. Mitchell, Dem.; George H. Brickner, 
Dem.; Lycurgus Miltiades Miller, Dem.; Frank P. Coburn, Dem.; Nils P. Hau- 
gen, Rep.: Thomas Lynch, Dem. 

Fifty-third Congress, (1893-95)— H. A. Cooper, Rep.; Charles Barwig, Dem.; 
Joseph W. Babcock, Rep.; John L. Mitchell, Dem. (resigned Feb. 10, 1893, and 
Peter J. Somers, Dem.. elected in his place); George H. Brickner, Dem.; Owen 
A. Wells, Dem.; George B. Shaw, Rep. (died Aug. 27, 1894, and Michael Griffin 
elected in his place) ; Lyman E. Barnes, Dem. ; Thomas Lynch, Dem. ; Nils P. 
Haugen. Rep. 

Fifty-fourth Congress (1895-97)— Henry A. Cooper, Rep. ; Edward Sauer- 
hering. Rep. ; Joseph W. Babcock. Rep. ; Theobald Otjen, Rep. ; Samuel S. 
Barney, Rep.; Samuel A. Cook, Rep.; Michael Griffin, Rep.; Edward S. Minor, 
Rep.; Alexander Stewart, Rep.; John J. Jenkins, Rep. 

Fifty-fifth Congress (1897-99)— Henry A. Cooper, Rep. ; Edward Sauerhering, 
Rep.; Joseph W. Babcock, Rep.; Theobald Otjen, Rep.; S. S. Barney, Rep.; 
James H. Davidson, Rep. ; Michael Griffin, Rep. ; Edward S. Minor, Rep. ; 
Alexander Stewart, Rep.; John J. Jenkins, Rep. 

Charles A. Eldredge became a national character on the floor 
of congress. He was known as the "Great Objector." 

Gen. Bragg added in congress to the reputation that had 
preceded him there as commander of the Iron brigade. His speecli 
which attracted most attention was a scatching denunciation of 
"coffee coolers" who were seeking pensions. 

Richard Guenther was one of less than half a dozen men who 
have represented districts wherein they did not reside. Gen. Bragg, 
after a bitter campaign in the old Second district, had been defeated 
for the Democratic nomination by Arthur K. Delaney. The district 
was overwhelmingly Democratic. Richard Guenther of OshkosJh, 
residing in another district, announced himself as a candidate in 
opposition, and local considerations created such a political revolt 
that he was elected by an immense majority. 



The Story of the State. 289 



Doubtless the event that brought a Wisconsin congressman to 
the attention of the country more conspicuously than any other 
was the exciting episode that gave John F. Potter the sobriquet of 
"Bowie-Knife PoUer." During the exciting days when the country 
was on the verge of civil war, bitter words in congress sometimes 
led to dueling. On one occasion there was a personal encounter 
on the floor of the house. Potter went to the rescue of one of his 
colleagues, and his sturdy blows created havoc among the Southern 
fire-eaters. London Punch published a clever parody concerning 
this event, and Ralph Waldo Emerson has included it in the 
collection of poems edited by him. It was some time after this, 
and for an altogether different cause, that Congressman Pryor 
challenged Congressman Potter to^ mortal combat. The latter 
accepted the challenge, and as the challenged party, chose bowie 
knives as the weapons. This was more than Pryor had bargained 
for, and the duel never took place. Mr. Potter became known 
all over the country as "Bowie-Knife Potter." He is still living 
on the farm in Walworth county where he first made his home 
sixty years ago. 

The following have served as speakers of the assembly since 
the first session of the state legislature: 

Speakers — Ninian E. Whitesides, Belmont, 1848; Harrison C. Hobart, She- 
boygan, 1849; Moses M. Strong, Mineral Foint, 1850; Frederick M. Horn, Cedar- 
burg, 1851, 1854, 1875; James M. Shatter, Sheboygan, 1852; Henry L. Palmer, 
Milwaukee, 1853; Charles C. Sholes, Kenosha, 1855; William Hull, Potosi, 1856; • 
Wyman Spooner, Elkhorn, 1857; Frederick S. Lovell, Kenosha, 1858; Williara 
Penn Lyon, Racine, 1859, 1860; Amasa Cobb, Mineral Point, 1861; James W. 
Beardsley, Prescott, 1862; J. Allen Barber, Lancaster, 1863; William W. Field, 
Fennimore, 1864, 1865; Henry D. Barron, St. Croix Falls, 1866, 1873; Angus Cam- 
eron, La Crosse, 1867; Alexander M. Thomson, Janesville, 1868, 1869; James M. 
Bingham, Palmyra, 1870; William E. Smith, Fox Lake, 1871; Daniel Hall, Water- 
town, 1872; Gabe Bouck, Oshkosh, 1874; Samuel S. Fifield, Ashland, 1875; John 
B. Cassoday, Janesville, 1877; Augustus R. Barrows, Chippewa Falls, 1878; David 
M. Kelly, Green Bay, 1879; Alexander A. Arnold, Galesville, 1880; Ira B. 
Bradford, Augusta, 1881; Franklin L. Gilson, Ellsworth, 1882; Earl P. Finch, 
Oshkosh, 1883; Hiram O. Fairchild, Marinette, 1885; Thomas B. Mills, Black 
River Falls, 1887, 1889; James J. Hogan, La Crosse, 1891; Edward Keogh, Mil- 
waukee, 1893; George B. Burrows, Madison, 1895; George Buckstaff, Oshkosh, 
1897 

Three political events have occurred during the last decade 

whose results have attracted attention all over the country. In 
1889 a member of the assembly from Iowa county introduced a 
compulsory school attendance bill, which subsequently took his 
name and became known as the Bennett law. Months after its 
passage it was discovered that one of its provisions required every 
child to be taught a certain amount of English. There are in 
the state many parochial schools conducted under the auspices of 
Lutheran and Catholic church organizations. The parents of chil- 
dren attending these schools became alarmed, believing that the 
state control of private schools was aimed at, and that parental 
rights were to be trampied upon. This was the section of the law 
that aroused their opposition: 

"No school shall be regarded as a school under this act, unless 
there shall be taught therein, as part of the elementary education of 



300 Leading Events of Wiseonsin History. 

children, reading, writing, arithmetic and United States history in 
the English language." 

A tremendous upheaval fallowed. The Republican party was 
swept to overwhelming defeat at the next election. The Democrats 
promptly repealed the law. 

For many years t)he treasurers of the state had been in the 
habit of loaning the funds entrusted to them, retaining the interest. 
The attorney-general, in 1891, instituted suit to recover these 
Interest moneys. The treasurers made legal resistance, but were 
beaten in the courts. During the year 1893 judgments for nearly 
half a million dollars were entered against the three preceding 
state treasurers. The amount represented the sums received by 
the former state treasurers, and interest thereon at 7 per cent. 
Two state treasurers whose terms antedated thirteen years were 
released by the legislature from their obligations. In their case's 
the interest on the interest far exceeded the original amount. 

When the Bennett law ferment placed the Democrats in control 
of the state after having looked over the fence for nearly a quarter 
of a centuiT, they redistricted the legislative districts so as to 
insure control of the legislature even in case of a minority vote. 
The gerrymander had been a political expedient for many years, 
but now for the first time a Supreme court set aside a legislative 
apportionment as void on constitutional grounds. A test case 
was instituted for the purpose of obtaining a judicial decision. 
The language of the justices was exceedingly severe in character- 
izing the unfairness of the gerrymander. A special session of the 
legislature was called by the governor to reapportion the state. 
Another gerrymander was the result. Again was the Supreme 
court appealed to, and again was the apportionment set aside. 

The result of the treasury and the gerrymander cases influenced 
similar action in many states in all sections of the United States. 



CHAPTER XV. 

MAY RIOTS OF '86. 

In the early May days oi" 1886 a reign of terror existed In the 
city of Milwaukee. Idle workmen paraded the streets; men willing 
to work were urged to join the demonstration and in many cases 
compelled to do so; crowds armed with paving blocks, billets and 
.other improvised weapons of the street overturned hucksters' 
stands, invaded manufacturing establishments and even attacked 
them. As the riotous proceedings grew to large proportions and 
the city seemed about to be stretched at the mercy of a mob, 
a deadly fire from the rifles of state militiamen was poured into a 
•crowd of Polish workmen and ended the lawlessness which had 
threatened to grow beyond control. The incidents were contem- 
poraneous with the tragic massacre of the Haymarket in Ohicago. 

Off in the East there appeared about Christmastide the year 
before a cloud seemingly no larger than a man's hand; by spring- 
time the entire sky was overcast and the storm center was over 
Chicago and Milwaukee. Several years before, the Federation of 
Trades, in national convention, had adopted resolutions advising 
all labor organizations "to so direct their laws that eight hours 
should constitute a legal day's work on and after May 1, 1886." 
The Knights of Labor, hitherto a weak and struggling organization, 
took up the eight-hour cry, and soon developed an enormous mem- 
"bership. In Wisconsin the working classes were exceedingly 
responsive. Robert Schilling became state organizer, and his ener- 
.getic work resulted in an enormous accession of members. In their 
declaration of principles, the Knights advocated shortening the 
hours of labor "by a general refusal to work for more than eight 
hours." The slogan, "eight hours' work and ten hours' pay" 
appealed with irresistible force to the great mass of unskilled 
laborers especially. The Knights of Labor took into their fold all 
who called themselves workmen; even women were importuned to 
join and assemblies were organized for them. 

The Central Labor union, a Socialistic organization, joined in 
the agitation and also secured many members. At its head wa.? 
Paul Grottkau, editor of The Arbeiter-Zeitung. He had but recently 
■oome from Germany, and threw himself into the movement with 
an energy that gave him a large and devoted personal following. 
Possessing a remarkable gift of oratory, he was able to sway 
liis followers as he wished. Thus, while the union had a membership 
materially smaller than the Knights of Labor, the workmen affili- 
ated with tbe organization were as conspicuous in the movement. 
When threatened anarchy was succeeded by order, the arm of the 
law fell heaviest on its members. 



302 



Leading Events of Wisconsin History. 



Between the leaders of the two organizations there was much 
bitter rivalry that found expression in the columns of their respect- 
ive newspapers. Personal antagonism did not, however, prevent 
common action in prosecuting the eight-hour movement. 

More than 3,000 persons attended a great preliminary mass 
meeting on the west side, and the aldermen were urged to manifest 
their sympathy by passing an ordinance fixing a day's work at 
eight hours for all day-laborers in the city's esmploy. Impressed 
by the demonstration, the aldermen complied with such haste as 
to suggest that political fear prompted their action. But one 




Paul, Grottkau. 
Leader of the Socialists in 



negative vote was recorded. It is worthy of note that but a few 
weeks later when the eight-hour day commotion had subsided, 
the same aldermen voted to repeal the ordinance. 

Shortly after, three large tobacco manufacturing firms acceded 
to the demands of their men and introduced the eight-hour 
schedule. It now seemed as if nothing could withstand the move- 
ment, and that on May 1 all employers would be compelled to 
inaugurate the new system. The organization of Knights of Labor 
assemblies went on at a remarkable rate. More than 10,000 mem- 
bers were counted in Milwaukee. At Marinette, Oconto and Peshtigo 
the men engaged in lumber industries joined the Knights in large 
numbers. 



The Story of the State. 303 



Believing that the concession of an eight-hour day from Edward 
P. Allis, in whose immense works more than a thousand men 
were employed, would operate powerfully in inducing smaller con- 
cerns to follow, it was planned to ask Mr. Allis for such a work-day 
before the fateful first day of May. Coupled with this proposition 
was a demand for a 25 per cent, increase in wages. The request 
was presented in April. Mr. Allis agreed to eight hours for a day's 
work, but gave his reasons why he could not increase wages, except 
in the case of common laborers. Although a committee of 
employees, after a conference, decided that Mr. Allis was justified 
in his course, the radicals repudiated the agreement entered into 
by their representatives. The conservative workmen stood by their 
committee and the firm. The result was that many timid 
employers were emboldened to follow the same course in dealing 
with their employees. 

On all sides there was a feeling of suppressed excitement when 
May 1 dawned. In Milwaukee the idle workmen on this day in- 
cluded about 7,000 persons, mainly belonging to the following 
classes: Brewery employes, journeymen carpenters, shop tailors 
and their helpers, clothing cutters, cigarmakers, broommakers, and 
about 2,000 common laborers. The events of the subsequent few 
days increased the number to about 16,000. 

May 1 occurred on a Saturday. There was no demonstration, 
but the following day a monster picnic had been planned by the 
Central Labor union. Several thousand men marched, and a few 
red flags were carried in the procession — an omen of what was to 
come. Some of the mottoes and sentiments on banners and stand- 
ards tended to alarm people, who looked with forebodings to the 
events of the coming week: 

"Right and law often differ materially from each other." 

"The idolaters of the golden calf must be downed." 

"Keep yourself, and God will theni keep you. Realize this, man, and end 
your sufferings." 

"They used to call it overproduction; now we shall consume some more." 

"The Republic shall have no ruler; not even King Mammon." 

"Capital must come down from its high horse." 

"We have come to the cross-roads. Honest workmen will follow the way. 
Mark the rats. Eight hours." 

"Capital is the product of labor; not its master." 

Many other sentiments of like tenor were displayed. 

Monday dawned; a general strike at the breweries was ordered. 
A thousand men marched to Falk's establishment and insisted that 
the unwilling workmen must join them. In many establishments 
the workmen marclied out in a body; in most of them the demand 
was for higher pay and shorter hours. By evening 14,000 bread- 
winners were out of work. 

It was during the afternoon of this day that the first lawless- 
ness occurred. The unskilled Polish laborers had thrown them- 



304 Leading Events of Wm-onsin History. 

selves into the eig-ht-hour movement with immense enthusiasm. 
They were deluded into believing that all wage workers would 
simultaneously quit work on the day agreed upon, and that none 
of them would resume work until the entire brotherhood of work- 
men were enabled to return on the same conditions. They loyally 
carried out what they regarded as their part of the agreement. 
When they learned that hundreds of workmen had remained at 
their places they became enraged. They believed they had been 
basely betrayed. In this temper, the few anarchists who lived In 
Milwaukee and made up in activity what they lacked in numbers, 
found the Polish workmen ductile material. The impressionable 
Slavs readily agreed that all workmen who had not struck for eight 
hours at the appointed time had proven false and must either 
abandon their jobs or suffer the consequences. 

On Monday afternoon, May 3, the trouble began. Some 1,400' 
men were working at the railway shops in the Menomonee valley. 
Several hundred Poles appeared here and called upon them to quit 
work. This the employees refused to do. A conflict seemed immi- 
nent; the handful of deputy sheriffs who came to the rescue deemed 
it suicidal to resist the riotous marchers, and induced the employees 
of the shops to leave the premises. The mob gave a shout of ex- 
ultation and marched to the city, augmenting in numbers as they 
proceeded. They followed the track of the Milwaukee & St. Paul 
railway, and reached the freight yards. A dash was made for tho 
freight warehouse, but the iron doers clanged in their faces, and 
their sticks and stones struck powerless against the unbroken wall 
of brick and metal. 

Some one shouted, "On to the AUis works," and thither the' 
mob pursued its march, the men yelling, "Eight hours," "Eight 
hours," as they went. While a self-constituted committee entered 
the main doorway to demand that all the men join the idlers, the 
crowd waited outside. In a few minutes the committee came out of 
the entrance in much haste and in miscellaneous disorder. The 
brawny muscle of the iron workers Vv^as the motive power that 
hastened their exit. A shout of anger went up and a hail of stones 
rattled against the sides of the Reliance Iron works. Sticks were 
brandished, and a simultaneous, but disorganized, move was made- 
to enter the main doorway. Bloodshed was imminent; at this junc- 
ture the doors of the main entrance were thrown wide open and in 
the shadow was seen a crowd of iron workers dragging a wriggling 
section of hose. An instant later a stream of hissing water en- 
countered the leaders of the assault, and men toppled helplessly all 
over the street. The catapult power of the stream shot some of 
the men clear across the street. Wet, bruised and discouraged, they 
picked themselves up; a few angrily advanced a second time to 
assault the defenders of the works, only to come in contact with 



The Story of the State. 305- 

the vigorous stream of water and to fly helplessly back into the 
arms of their companions. At this juncture two patrol wagons 
hove in sight, and a score of policemen jumped into the midst of 
the crowd and completed the rout by hammering right and left 
with their clubs of stout hickory. 

There was now the utmost consternation in the city. The 
authority of law trembled in the balance. Mayor Emil Wallber 
advised Mr. Allis to close his works and this was done. Gov. Jere- 
miah Rusk was notified by wire of the situation and, accompanied 
by his military advisers, hastened from Madison to Milwaukee on a 
special train. Several regiments of the National guard were or- 
dered to be ready to respond at a moment's notice. That night the 
authorities slumbered on the thin crust of a volcano. 

Long before the bells in the double towers of St. Stanislaus 
church struck the hour of 6 o'clock, Tuesday morning, men with 
sullen faces gathered in its vicinity. All carried clubs. At about 
7 o'clock six or seven hundred men moved as if by preconcerted 
action in the direction of tae rolling mills in Bay View. On the 
way they came to a trench dug by sewer diggers. These men were 
compelled to join the strikers, and their shovels were labeled with 
chalk, in letters as large as their size would permit: 

"8 HOURS." 

At the railroad tracks one of the leaders mounted a sidetracked 
freight car and made an impassioned harangue. In the valley the 
smoke from chimneys denoted that men were busy in a number of 
establishments. These were unceremoniously entered and the work- 
men were forced to yield to the order, "Close down," and to 
march along. 

At the rolling mills the coming of the men had been espied 
from a distance, and an urgent message by telephone had been 
sent to the authorities at the Squadron armory. On receipt of the 
message, the firebells rang the signal agreed upon to call the 
militiamen to their duty. Before the National guardsmen had all 
responded and could be transported to Bay Blew, some hours, 
elapsed. The rolling mill officials in the meantime received a 
deputation of the mob, and to gain time kept them in consultation — 
ostensibly to decide upon conditions for shutting down the works. 
While this conference was in progress a man on the roof anxiously 
scanned the road leading cityward to give early notice of the 
coming of the militia. The crowd that surrounded the little office 
outside the fence-encircled iron works for some time patientlj' 
awaited the outcome of the conference, but finally grew demon- 
strative. At this juncture Robert Schilling, the recognized leader 
of the Knights in Wisconsin, appeared and made a speech coun- 
seling them to make no- lawless demonstration and bitterly attack- 
ing the anarchists who were spurring the deluded men on to 



306 



Leading Events of ^yisconsin History. 



their destruction. He had hardly ceased speaking when a train 
came speeding along, stopped, and emptied into the midst of the 
astonished workmen four companies of National guardsmen. 
There was a moment's hesitation, and the short sharp commands 
of the officers were almost drowned by the jeers of the crowd, 
now numbering at least a thousand men. 

What angered the crowd more than anything was the fact that 
one of the companies — the Kosciusko guard — was composed of their 
countrymen. As the soldiers were formed in line and marched 
through the midst of the increasing crowd, taunts and insults and 
raised sticks and clubs gave undeniable evidence of the warlike 
temper of the mob. Soon a stone whistled through the air and a 




Robert Schilling. 
Knights of Labor Organizer in 188G. 



member of the Kosciusko guard picked up his smashed helmet. 
As the crowd grew more demonstrative, it was deemed prudent 
to withdraw the militia to the area within, the high board fence. 
The huge gates were opened, and they marched in. The Kosciusko 
guard brought up the rear. As the last men were about to pass 
within the gates, a shower of stones and other missiles followed 
them. Many of them were struck in the back and on the head. 
As if by common impulse, the men turned, leveled their rifles at 
the crowd and a volley of bullets sped along. Many of the mob, 
as they saw the rifles aimed, threw themselves flat upon the ground, 
others sought shelter behind woodpiles and telegraph posts and 
fences. Notwithstanding, it seemed providential that the ground 
was not strewn with dead and dying. Many buildings in range of 



The Story of the State. 307 



the rifles were perforated by the bullets, but not one person was. 
wounded by the volley. The gates were hastily shut, and the dis- 
orderly attack on the militia was converted into a siege. A few 
belated soldiers who came out to join their comrades were chased 
a long distance by some of the strikers, but escaped capture. 
Towards night the mob gradually grew thinner and dispersed. 

In the meantime, the Central Labor union had called its mem- 
bers to assemble at Milwaukee garden, which was regarded as the 
Socialistic headquarters. After listening to a speech by Paul 
Grottkau, the men formed in line, a thousand strong, and marched 
to Brand's Stove works. The firm had granted all the demands of 
the men; notwithstanding, the employees were compelled to throw 
down their tools and walk out. An attack on the bakeries was 
deferred until the day following. The police dispersed the second 
gathering. 

The city was now convulsed with terror. To add to the alarm, 
it was noticed that on doorways, on sidewalks and on the sides of 
houses adjacent to the streets mysterious figures and devices were 
scribbled in chalk. They were all of uniform character, except 
the numbers, like this: 



3 


5 

8x 


3198 






5 

8:30 


4 




.5354 


X 



The marks were inoffensive enough, had they been understood; 
it was the method pursued by the Knights to notify their members 
of the date and hour of meeting of the respective assemblies; but 
this was not' known outside the ranks of the knights, and it was. 
assumed that the town was about to be put to the torch and all 
its inhabitants slaughtered. 

Following unsigned notice was scattered broadcast on the after- 
noon of May 5, and the leaders of the Knights of Labor conspic- 
uously wore blue ribbons on the lapels of their coats: 

"Every Knight of Labor is hereby asked by the Executiva 
board to keep away from all public meetings that are held at this 
time. Every member is ordered to wear a blue badge or ribbon 
as a token of peace and order. At the same time we request all 
Knights of Labor to remain at their work or at their homes, and 
in all cases assist the authorities in protecting life and property." 

It was too late. The feverish excitement of the last three days 
had carried many of the workingmen beyond control. 

The tragic end came on Wednesday. Early in the morning 
another crowd had gathered at the St. Stanislaus church corner, 
their purpose being to again march to Bay View. There the militia- 
men were still encamped, reinforced by some of the companies 
from the interior of the state. Gov. Rusk had sent word that 
in case of a repetition of mob tactics, the soldiers should shoot 



308 Leading Events of Wiseonsin History. 



to kill. When the commanding officer, Maj. George P. Traeumer, 
saw the mob advancing up the road he massed bis troops so as to 
block the roadway. He waved his hand to the mob in warning 
not to approach nearer. The mob was then a thousand yards away. 
Either they did not understand the officer's warning, or were 
emboldened not to heed It as a result of the previous day's harmless 
volley. If they believed the soldiers would fire blank cartridges, 
they were quickly undeceived. Maj. Traeumer gave the word and 
two companies discharged their rifles in the direction of the mob. 
Panic seized the crowd as they saw their comrades fall, some dead 
and some terribly wounded. How many bullets took effect will 
never be known. As the crowd dispersed they carried their 
wounded with them. 

It is known that eight fatalities resulted. Among the dis- 
tressing casualties were the shooting of an old man of 70 while 
feeding the chickens in his yard, ajid of a young schoolboy, who 
was in the ranks of the marchers wjien the soldiers fired. 

The terrible events at Bay View ended the riotous demonstra- 
tions. Some of the anarchists and Socialists were arrested, and 
a few of them were sentenced to hard labor in the House of 
Correction on the charge of "riot and conspiracy"; among them 
was Paul Grottkau. Many leading Knights of Labor, including 
Robert Schilling, were also arrested for boycotting under the law 
of conspiracy, but the cases were not tried. 

The disturbances had lasted less than a week. The volley 
that struck down the mob at Bay View likewise killed the agitation 
for eight hours. Men returned to work without renewing their 
demands; factories and workshops resumed operations; but for many 
months thereafter a boycott was maintained, despite the arrest of 
a score of Knights for conspiracy. Members of the Kosciusko guard 
found themselves ostracized by their compatriots, and those in 
business were almost ruined. It took years to efface the enmity 
evolved by their response to duty when the call to arms was a 
summons to face neighbors and friends with leveled rifles. 

On numerous occasions have the chief executives of the state 
been asked to intervene in labor troubles by calling out the National 
guard. But twice, besides the May riots of '86, have they done so. 
In 1881, striking mill men at Eau Claire threatened to destroy 
the property of their employers. Gov. Wm. E. Smith dispatched 
several companies of miutia to the scene, and the "saw-dust war," 
as it was called, ended without bloodshed. It was in this same 
year that all the cigarmakers in Milwaukee went out on strike. 

In 1889 there was a serious strike of laborers at West Superior. 
Their attitude was so menacing that the governor deemed it pru- 
dent to send National guardsmen to the North Wisconsin metrop- 
olis. Their presence restored quiet. 



The Story of the State. 3)9 

Early in Gov. Rusk's administration, railroad workmen em- 
ployed in the construction of the, Superior Air line grew violent 
because they had not received their pa,y and were on the point of 
starvation. Gov. Rusk was asked to call out the militia. He 
investigated the trouble, declared that the men were entitled to 
bread and not bullets, and compelled the contractors to live up 
to their agreement with the men. 

The great street railway strike of 1896, in Milwaxikee, attracted 
attention all over the country by reason of the remarkable boycott 
that was waged for several weeks. To enforce a demand for more 
wages, the motor men and conductors left their cars, and declared 
a boycott. The public sympathetically walked or rode in 'buses 
and ancient vehicles imported in great number from the towns 
and cities within a hundred miles of Milwaukee. There was no 
serious disturbance, and the strikers had the sympathy of the 
community in an unusual degree. When a car made a trip at 
irregular intervals the only passengers were policemen on guard 
duty. On some days (Sundays) not a car moved. Then came a 
boycott that bade fair to paralyze every industry in the city, and 
seemed to permeate and affect every business and channel of life. 
The result was a great reaction, and the strike, while seemingly 
won, collapsed. 

"This boycott is a marvel," wrote a newspaper correspondent. 
■"Its like has never been seen before in this or any other country. 
The condition into which it has thrown a big busy city stands 
unique in the history of the world to-day. King Boycott is absolute 
master in Milwaukee. The 200,000 and more human beings who live 
and toil in this city are subject to his scepter. The first blow 
was aimed at the Street Railway company, and nobody cared. The 
sjTnpathetic people walked or rode in nondescript vehicles called 
omnibuses, and suffered inconveniences uncomplainingly. The next 
blow hit officers of the street railway company through their 
private enterprises, and only those directly interested suffered. 
Then the ban was placed on all who might offer aid and comfort 
to the enemy by riding on cars, doing business with its officers 
privately or doing business with people who bad ridden on the 
street cars. This final blow reached all walks of life, all enterprises, 
all avocations, and was extended even into the third and fourth 
generations and to relatives by marriage. In Milwaukee every 
man in the service of King Boycott is a spy upon his neighbor. 
The result is virtually a reign of terror. Business is throttled 
almost to the point of complete strangulation." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE GREAT BOOM ON THE GOGEBIC. 

Old maps of Wisconsin, dated years after territorial times and 
even long after assumption of statehood, mark the south shore of 
the Wisconsin river as the border of civilization. Until the last 
two decades Northern Wisconsin was considered a trackless wilder- 
ness, broken only by an occasional clearing made by a venturesome 
pioneer, some lumber camps here and there, and a straggling 
hamlet or two at long intervals. The remarkable development of 
the region within this comparatively short time is one of the 
notable epochs in the history of the state. The discovery of mineral 
wealth gave the first impetus of considerable magnitude to this 
rapid growth. It led to the extension of railroads where for miles 
there was not a sign of human habitation; cities were built in a 
night, and brought enterprises that added to population and material 
wealth; tillers of the soil followed in fewer but ever increasing 
numbers; to-day Northern Wisconsin is a region of prosperous 
towns and thrifty farms. 

The story of the great Grogebic boom, one of the conspicuous 
episodes in the development of Northern Wisconsin, is well 
worth telling. 

The discovery of high-grade Bessemer ore on the Gogebic range 
and the consequent unfolding of vast possibilities led to a specu- 
lative craze the like of which has had no parallel in Wisconsin. 
While it lasted, fortunes were made and lost within a month — a 
week — it might almost be said overnight. All sorts and conditions 
of men and women were seized with the mania to dump their 
dollars into the holes dug by the prospectors, not a few of which 
proved bottomless pits. The country merchant and the farmer 
invested blindly in mining stocks, and not a few mortgaged all 
they had to add a lot of certificates to their holdings; in the cities, 
business and professional men, ministers of the Gospel, underpaid 
clerks and servant girls joined in the grand scramble for riches. 
Men who didn't possess enough money to pay a week's board in 
advance organized companies capitalized for a million or two, 
and sold stock to credulous investors. Mines were sold at fabulous 
prices. The enterprising sellers developed from poor men to mining 
kings, were rated as millionaires, and spent their money with a 
prodigality that seemed to warrant the title. While the boom 
lasted, especially in the year 1886, there seemed no limit to the 
extravagant hopes entertained by fortune-seekers. 

"It is worth more to the people than to uncover the hidden gold 
of Capt. Kidd or to raise the sunken treasure of the Spanish Main," 

310 



The Story of the State. 311 



were the enthusiastic words of John E. Burton at a great banquet 
given in Hurley. "Like a lightning flash of twining gold, for thirty 
miles its veins were streaked through imperishable granite, while 
nature, almost surprised at its lavish act, tenderly covered her 
treasure with a hanging wall of the gentle slates. Between the 
quartzite and the trap of the old Huronian belt, the unfolding of 
a beautiful law hid this boundless wealth more than a million 
years ago, to be found by some bold but favored son, whose 
daring deeds should be crowned and sceptered as a king in the 
jnetallic realm." 

The reign of the mining king was brief — but splendid. One 
fortunate prospector who jumped from a meager crust of bread 
to affluence that seemed limitless, spent money with reckless lavish- 
ness. The buttons of his coat, vest and trousers were diamond- 
studded, and the gems were of the rarest size and water. In each 
of a dozen towns on the range he owned a handsomely furnished 
residence. Another miner who esteemed himself worth millions 
evidenced his financial plethora on one occasion by paying $35,000 
for a Chicago book store, merely to acquire a dozen books which he 
wanted for his collection. 

In the mining towns splendid brick blocks and palatial houses 
were constructed; newspapers were issued in sumptuous editions — 
one issue of The Gogebic Iron Tribune included twenty pages, was 
printed on tinted paper in handsome style and comprised 10,000 
copies. Newspaper men were carried to the range in palace cars 
to view the properties; so were moneyed men from the East, who 
had been attracted by the stories sent abroad. Gogebic stocks be- 
gan to be quoted in New York and were listed regularly. Bulletins 
were issued daily. A stock exchange was opened in Milwaukee. The 
advertisement that the Gogebic range received was phenomenal. 
In an incredibly short time 15,000 persons had been attracted to the 
range. The building of Hurley and Ironwood demonstrates the 
rapid growth. The path that was blazed through a virgin forest 
from the right of way of the Lake Shore road to the Norrie mine — 
a distance of half a mile — less than two years later approximated 
the main street of a town of 4,000 inhabitants (Ironwood). The 
miner who opened up this property had only a short time before, in 
going by trail from Ashland to Bessemer, encamped overnight in an 
old log shack on the very site of the Norrie. 

For a distance of many miles and wholly beyond the limits of 
the vein of ore, prospectors dug pits and located mines. There was 
not a forty within half a mile of the range that was not honey- 
combed with pits ranging in depth from 10 to 150 feet. Beautifully- 
engraved certificates of stock in a hundred or more mining compan- 
ies were issued on the basis of future finds and were eagerly pur- 
chased by people whose knowledge of mining was limited to a small 



312 



Leadiiifj Events of Wisconsin History. 



vocabulary of technical terms. They coxild talk glibly about the 
"hanging wall," "running a level," "drifting the vein," "cross-cuts," 
and similar expressions, and they borrowed money from friends to 
invest in mining certificates that to-day are valuable only as sou- 
venirs. 

The boom on the Gogebic was not all based on great expecta- 
tions. Tremendous deposits of high grade ore were uncovered, and 
gave a real value to many properties. It was an era of vast railroad 
extension in the United States, and the displacement of wood by iron 




THE ORE VEIN ON THE GOGEBIC. 
FROM AN OLD MAP. 

(The section of a map of 1886 given above shows where the main properties 
were located, including the Norrie, which shipped a million tons of ore in one 
season, breaking the world's record; and the Aurora, a half share in which was 
sold for $600,000 in cash.) 



for structural purposes was assuming large proportions. Nor was 
the speculative boom based on fraud to as large an extent as was 
afterwards claimed by the thousands of victims who were unable to 
realize ten cents a share for what had cost them from a dollar to tea 
dollars and more a share. A great deal of the money that was sunk 
in worthless properties was expended in preliminary work. It was 
afterwards figured by an experienced miner that as much money 
was dumped into the pits dug by the explorers as was taken out by 
the profitable properties in legitimate mining. The aggregate must 



The Stori/ of the State. 313 

be counted not in hundreds or thousands, tout in millions. Those 
who bought stock for a quick turn realized handsomely as a rule. 
Those who held on to stocks that seemed increasing, lost everything 
when the great crash came. An instance can be cited as illustrative 
of the opportunities for quick returns: 

A young man who had recently gone to the range from Mil- 
waukee was present when the blast was fired that uncovered a large 
deposit of ore. He rushed to a telephone and communicated with 
a companion: 

"Get an option on every share in the Blank mine that you are 
able to secure at current price, and do it as quickly as you can." 

Before the news of the discovery of the deposit had become 
known, a hundred dollars had purchased an option on a thousand 
shares of the stock at $6.25 a share. In less than a week the two 
young men had sold the stock at $10.25 a share, and divided a profit 
of $4,000 on a week's investment of a hundred dollars in cash. 

This was an actual transaction, and was but one of many. 

For awhile prosperity came to everybody on the range. Leav- 
ing out the salaried officials, the average pay of the men at the Nor- 
rie mine was $2.37 a day — ^and in this average, covering a period of 
six months, are reckoned the wages paid the surface men, who re- 
ceived $1.65 a day. Some of the miners made $180 a month. 

On a forty-mile run of the Lake Shore road, from Ironwood to 
Ashland, ore trains were run at express speed. This bit of railroad 
became the best-paying mileage in the United States. Eighteen tons 
of ore made up each car, forty cents a ton was charged for this short 
run to the ore docks, and sometimes the same car made the run 
twice in a day. Every car of the many that made up the numerous 
ore trains thus brought a revenue of $14.40 a day to the railroad 
company, or $1,440 for a hundred cars. It was reckoned that there 
was a profit of a dollar a ton for every ton of ore dug and sold dur- 
ing this period of prosperity. In one year the Norrie mine alone 
shipped a trifle less than a million tons of ore. Under such circum- 
stances it was not to be wondered at that those who were "on the 
ground floor" felt that they could afford such extravagances as 
wearing costly diamonds in place of ordinary buttons. The Colby 
mine yielded enormous profits. The Aurora tempted an Eastern 
syndicate to pay $600,000 for a half interest, or 20,001 shares. This 
was $30 for each share of $25 face value. They increased the shares 
to 100,000 and these fell to but $27 each after this enormous inflation. 
The $600,000 purchase money was deposited in cash in one of the 
Milwaukee banks. 

Such were the conditions that made everybody connected with 
the range consider himself a millionaire, or a prospective million- 
aire. In May, 1886, one year after the commencement of the boom, 
one of the range newspapers gave a summary of the values of the 



314 



Leading Events of Wisconsin Eintury. 



Gogebic mines that was regarded as entirely reasonable and con- 
servative in placing the total at $24,000,000. 

"The Gogebic range, which a year ago to-day was practically 
unknown and of uncertain and doubtful value," was the editor's 
comment, "is to-day estimated to contain more wealth than the en- 
tire assessed valuation of some of the oldest states in the Union." 

The several mine leases were estimated to be worth, as com- 
mercial property, the amounts given below: 



Mines. 

Aurora 

Iron King 

Ashland 

Norrie 

Pabst 

Bonnie 

First National and Geneva.. 

Blue Jacket 

Puritan 

Ironton 

Tontine 

Valley Mines (3) 

Colby 

Palms 

Anvil 

Gogebic 

Iron Prince 

Iron Sides 

Crown Point 

Brotherton 

Smith 

Iron Chief 

Minnewawa 

Germania 

Montreal 

Nimikon 

South Nimikon 



Value. 

$600,000 

400,000 

650,000 

800,000 

240,000 

320,000 

320,000 

IGO.OOO'l 

240,0001 

180,0001 

90,0001 

480,000 

3,000,000 

150,000 

175,000 

120,000 

40,000 

55,000 

50,000 

150,000 

125,000 

100,000 

200,000 

400,000 

250,000 

150,000 

20,000 



Mines. Value. 

Kakagon 150,000 

Bessemer. .. 100,000 

Superior 125,000 

Odanah (Puggawaugan) 200,000 

Ryan 160,000 

Moore 100,000 

Wood 60,000 

Amazon 200,000 

Pence 200,000 

Badger State 100,000 

Caledonia 100,000 

Laura 60,000 

Lottie 20,000 

West Ryan 50,000 

Kennon 40,00( 

Northern Chief fee simple 1,500.000 

Penokee & Gogebic Develop- 
ment Co. fee 2,000,000 

Gogebic Iron Syndicate 1,000,000 

Newport & Lake Superior 

Land Co. fee 1,WX>,000 

Lake Superior Ship Canal 

Co. fee 5,000,000 

Longyear & Co., and all 

others 2,000,000 



Total value $23,465,000 



The sale of the Bonnie and Iron King properties for $1,200,000 
early in 1887 was noted as the third largest transaction up to :hat 
time. A colossal syndicate was planned to obtain possession of the 
richest mines on the range, and financiers of national reputation 
were interested in the enterprise. Before the plans were fully ma- 
tured, the great crash came, and values dwindled from millions to 
thousands. This was in the summer and fall of 1887. The previous 
winter the prices of stock had reached the highest notch. "With the 
opening of navigation in the spring, expected ore shipments "ould 
not be made from some mines because there was no ore there to 
ship; from others because there were no facilities for shipment. 
Lack of dividends created first suspicion and then alarm. There was 
a great crash; the speculator disappeared from the range and left 
the legitimate miner to develop the mineral wealth through slower 
and stabler processes. 

Years ago the scientist. Increase A. Lapham, intimated that 
vast deposits of iron lay buried in the range that crosses the boun- 
dary line of Wisconsin and the northern peninsula of Michigan. It 
remained for Nat Moore, a roving adventurer, to make the discov- 
ery that sent scores of prospectors to the region between Penokee 



The Story of the State. 315 

Gap and Gogebic lake. His first trip to the Gogebic was in 1872, 
when he made a dangerous journey of a hundred and ten miles on 
snowshoes. It was some years later that he made another long 
and lonely journey through the woods, and following the path cut 
through the tangled forest by a hurricane, found clean hematite ore 
under the roots of a fallen tree. It was this circumstance that made 
Moore the pioneer of the Gogebic. Like John E. Burton, who be- 
came the promoter of the mining properties, he amassed in a couple 
of years a fortune estimated at several millions of dollars. Both 
men lost all they had made when the collapse came. 




Timothy O. Howe. 












Jeremiah M. Rusk. 




Alexander W. Randall. 




'^^^ 



William F. Vilas. 



WISCONSIN'S CABINET REPRESENTATIVES. 
(Alexander W. Randall served in President. Johnson's cabinet as Postmaster- 
General; Timothy O. Howe in President Arthur's cabinet in the same capacity, 
and William F. Vilas in President Cleveland's cabinet. The latter was trans- 
ferred to the head of the Interior Department. Jeremiah M. Rusk was Secretary 
of Agriculture in President Harrison's cabinet.) 



CHAPTER XVII. 
A. D. 1897. 

This, in outline, is fhe history of Wisconsin up to the year of its 
golden jubilee. It is a narrative that is in many respects unique. 
From the early daj^s of lawless forest commerce, through French 
dominion and British rule to the modem era of progressive Ameri- 
can statehood, there is a series of events as interesting in character 
if not as important in scope, as those which tell the story of the 
cavaliers of Virginia, the pilgrims of Massachusetts, or the fortune- 
seekers of California. 

There is no oracle to prophesy the future of Wisconsin. The 
commercial, as well as the political supremacy of the North Ameri- 
can continent is rapidly moving westward. When the Mississippi 
valley shall be the seat whence the determining influences upon the 
nation shall emanate, who shall venture to predict the share allotted 
to Wisconsin in guiding the destinies of the people? 



317 



INDEX. 



Adams, John, 129. 

Albanel, Father, 69. 

Alexander, Chas., 295. 

Allen, Thos. S., 259. 

Allis, B. P., 283, 295, 303, 305. 

Allouez, Claude, 18, 25, 58, 61, 64, 65, 

67, 68, 69, 70, 71. 
Amherst, Gen. Jeffrey, 181. 
Anderson, R. B., 292. 
Anderson, Thos. G., 140, 147. 
Anderson, Wendell A., 292. 
Andre, Louis, 69. 
Ange, Augustln, 137, 139. 
Antaya, Pierre, 137. 
Aquipaguetin, Indian chief, 86. 
Armour, Phil. D., 283. 
Arndt, C. C, 188, 196, 197. 

Arnold, A. A., 299. 
Arnold, Jonathan B., 188. 

Astor, John Jacob, 139, 152. 

Atkinson, Gen., 161, 178. 

Atwood, David, 297. 

Babbitt, Clinton, 298. 

Babcock, J. "W., 298. 

Bailey, Jos., 269, 270. 

Baird, Mrs. H. S., 33. 

Baird, H. S., 223, 294. 

Baker, Bnos S., 196. 

Balfour, Capt., 107. 

Barney, S. S., 298. 

Barber, J. Allen, 297, 298, 299. 

Barstow, Wm. A., 223, 221, 230, 231, 233, 
294. 

Barre, La Febvre de la, 184. 

Barth, Laurent, 137, 139. 

Barnes, Lyman, 298. 

Barron, H. D., 299. 

Barrows, A. R., 299. 

Barwig, Chas., 298. 

Bashford, Coles, 223, 224, 230, 231, 294. 

Beauharnois, Marquis de, 184. 

Beaujeau, Capt., 95. 

Beardsley, J. W., 299. 

Bedford, Thos., 205. 

Bertley, J. H., 295. 

Billinghurst, Chas., 297. 

Bingham, Jas. M., 299. 

Blaine, Jas. G., 234. 

Black Hawk, 23, 150, 162, 172, 173, 174, 

175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180. 
Blatz, Val., 283. 



Boisrondet, Sieur de, 84. 

Boilvin, Col. Nicholas, 142, 143, 165. 

Booth, Sherman M., 226, 227, 228, 230. 

Bouck, Gabe, 298, 299. 

Bourassa, Charlotte, 112. 

Bowman, Jonathan, 297. 

Bovay, A. E., 234. 

Braddock, Gen., 22, 113, 114. 

Bradford, Ira B., 299. 

Bradley, J. B., 283. 

Bragg, E. S., 254, 255, 290, 292, 297, 298. 

Brice, Adele, 215. 

Brickner, Geo. H., 298. 

Brigham, Ebenezer, 153, 167. 

Brown, J. S., 297. 

Brunson, Dr., 139. 

Buckstaft, Geo., 299. 

Bulger, Capt. A. H., 148, 149, 150, 151. 

Burns, John, 256, 257. ♦ 

Burnett, Thomas P., 187, 188. 

Burchard, S. D., 298. 

Burrows, G. B., 299. 

Burton, John E., 311, 312, 315. 

Bushnell, A. M., 298. 

Butler, Dr. J. D., 19. 

Butt, C. M., 295. 

Butterfield, C. W., 103. 

Cadotte, Michael, 137. 

Calhoun, John C, 235, 236. 

Callis, Gen., 257. 

Calliere, Louis de, 184. 

Cameron, Angus, 295, 297, 299. 

Campbell, Jas., 257. 

Campbell, Colin, 295. 

Campbell, Geo., 189. 

Cardinelle, Jean Marie, 138. 

Carlton, Guy, 184. 

Carpenter, M. H., 230, 246, 281, 295, 296, 

292. 
Carver, Capt. Jonathan, 26, 122, 123, 

124, 125, 139. 
Case, J. L, 283. 
Cass, Lewis, 146, 157, 161, 164, 1S5, 219, 

294. 
Cassody, J. B., 295, 299. 
Caswell, L. B., 289, 298. 
Cate, Geo. W., 298. 
Catherwood, Mrs. Henry, 55, 121. 
Chamberlain, Everett, 189. 
Chamberlin, T. C, 11, 12. 
Chase, Warren, 189, 195. 



318 



Index — Continued. 



319 



Charlevoix, P., 19. 

Childs, Ebenezer, 189. 

Clark, C. B., 298. 

Clark, George Rogers, 26, 11&, 127, 128, 

129. 
Clegharn, J. F., 295. 
Cobb, Amasa, 258, 289, 297, 299. 
Coburn, F. P., 298. 
Cochrane, John, 295. 
Colby, C. L., 297. 
Cole, Orsamus, 295, 296, 297. 
Collins, Jas., 188, 223, 294. 
Cook, S. A., 298. 
Cooper, H. A., 298. 
Courcelle, Daniel de, 184. 
Cramahe, Hector T., 184. 
Cramer, Edw., 293. 
Crawford, Wm. H., 152. 
Crawford, Samuel, 295. 
Crooks, Ramsey, 119, 156. 
Cross, J. B., 242, 294. 
Curtin, Jeremiah, 292. 
Gushing, Wm. B., 262, 263, 264, 2G5, 266, 

267, 268. 
Cutler, Manassah, 132. 
Dane, Nathan, 132. 
D'Angouleme, Duchess, 241. 
Darling, Mason C., 297. 
Davidson, J. H., 298. 
Davis, David C., 293. 
Davis, Jefferson, 271, 272, 274, 275. 
Dekora, Indian warrior, 179. 
Delaney, A. K., 298. 
Denonvllle, Marquis de. 184. 
DePeyster, Arent S., 116. 
Deuster, P. V., 293, 298. 
Dewey, Nelson, 220, 223, 29!. 
Dichman, Ernst, 292. 
Dick, William, 28. 
Dick, Alonzo, 28. 
Dickson, Robert, 144, 145, 146. 
Dixon, Lr. S., 295, 297. 
Dodge, Henry, 158, 161, 167, 177, 178, 

180, 185, 187, 188, 295. 
Donnelly, J. G., 293. 
Doolittle, Jas. R., 280, 281, 294, 295. 
Doran, John L., 246. 
Doty, J. D., 181. 182, 185, 186, 187, 188, 

297. 
Downer, Jason, 295. 
Drake, Geo. C, 253. 
Dreutzer, O. E., 293. 
Ducharme, Dominic, 108, 137. 
Ducharme, Jean, 108. 115. 
Duerst, Mathias, 213, 214. 
Dunn, Charles, 185, 187. 
Du L'Hut, Daniel, 56, 78, 79, 87, 88. 
Durkee, Chas., 189, 234, 295, £97. 
Durant, E. G., 295. 



Eastman, Benj. C, 297. 

Ecuyer, Jean, 138, 139. 

Edwards, Ninian, 185. 

Ellis, A. G., 236. 

Eldredge, C. A., 297, 298, 289. 

Engelmann, N., 283. 

Ernst, Geo. R., 293. 

Esterley, Geo., 283. 

Btherington, Capt., 109, 110. 

Fairchild, Lucius, 244, 2.54, 292, 294, 299. 

Farnsworth, William, 155. 

Farwell, L. J., 222, 223, 294. 

Featherstonhaugh, Geo., 168. 

Ferguson, Benj., 294. 

Field, W. W., 299. 

Fifield, S. S., 299. 

Finch, Earl P., 299. 

Finch, W. R., 292. 

Four Legs, Indian chief, 9ff. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 129. 

Fratt, N. D., 295. 

Frazer, W. C, 185. 

Fremont, John C, 234. 

Frontenac, Count, 72, 80, 184. 

Gagnier, Registre. 159. 

Galissoniere, Count, 184. 

Gardner, W. E., 293. 

Garfield, J. A., 290, 291. 

Garland, B. S., 226, 227. 

Gautier, Chas., 126, 127, 130. 

Giard, Bazil, 137, 139, 

Gillespie, Ezekiel, 282. 

Gilman, Henry, 20. 

Gilson, F. L., 299. 

Glory of the Morning, 26, 123, 130. 

Glover, Joshua, 226, 227, 230. 

Goldschmidt, Julius, 292. 

Gorrell, Lieut. Jas., 107, 108, 109. 

Graham, Warren, &Z. 

Graham, Duncan, 160. 

Gratiot, Henry, 167. 

Griffin, M., 298. 

Grignon, Augustin, 91, 113, 143. 

Groseilliers, Medart, 24, 47, 48, 49, .50, 

51. 
Grottkau, Paul, 301, 302, 307, 308. 
Guenther, Richard, 292, 298. 
Haldimand, Gen., 184. 
Hall, Daniel, 299. 
Hamilton, Gen., 126, 129. 
Hamilton, Wm. S., 167, 180. 
Hanchett, Luther, 297. 
Hanson, Dr., 241. 
Haraszthy, Count Augustus, 210. 
Harnden, Henry, 271. 
Harrison, Wm. Henry, 185. 
Harvey, Mrs. Cordelia, 2^1. 
Harvey, L. P., 189, 294, 223. 
Hastings, S. D., 295. 



520 



Index — Co nt i nu ed . 



Haugen, Nils P., 289, 298. 

Hazelton, G. C, 297. 

Hazelton, Gerry W., 297, 298. 

Heg, Evan, 211. 

Heg, Hans C, 246. 

Henderson, Robt.^ 295. 

Hennepin, Friar Louis, 19, 78, 79, SO, 

81, 83, 86, 87, 88, 105. 
Henry, Alexander, 55, 118, 119, 120, 121. 

137. 
Hickox, Geo. W., 188. 
Hickox, Clark, 171. 
Hicks, John, 292. 
Hoard, W. D., 294. 

Hobart, H. C, 276, 277, 278, 279, 294, 293 
Hogan, J. J., 299. 
Holton, EJ. D., 188, 223, 242, 294. 
Hope, Henry, 184. 
Hopkins, Benj. P., 297. 
Horn, Fred. M., 299. 
Houghton, R. P., 283. 
Howard, Gen. Benjamin, 152. 
Howe, Timothy O., 230, 233, 292, 295, 29; 
Houghton, G. G., 283. 
Hoy, Dr. R. P., 19. 
Hubbell, Levi, 223, 295. 
Hudd, Thos. R., 298. 
Hull, Wm., 299. 
Humphrey, H. L., 298. 
Irvin, David, 185. 
Irvine, Palius Emeline, 181. 
Jackson, Andre^w, 185. 
Jackson, Chester E., 293. 
Jackson, M. M., 292, 295. 
Jay, John, 129. 
Jefferson, Thomas, 132. 
Jenkins, J. J., 298. 
Jenkins, J. G., 295. 
Joinville, Prince de, 235, 236, 239. 
Joliet, Louis, 66, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 

77, 103. 
Jonas, Carl, 293. 
Jones, Burr W., 298. 
Jones, Evan R., 293. 
Jones, Geo. "W., 185, 187. 
Jonquiere, Marquis de, 184. 
Jourdain, Madeline, 236, 240. 
Juneau, Solomon, 140. 
Kanouse, T. L., 295. 
Keenan, Geo., 293. 
Keogh, Edw., 299. 
Keokuk, Indian chief, 180. 
Kelley, J. H., 283. 
Kelly, D. M., 297, 299. 
Kellogg, L. H., 283. 
Kellon, D. H., 37. 
Keyes, E. W., 297. 
Kickbusch, F. W., 293. 
Kilbourn, Byron, 188. 



Kimball, A. M., 298. 

King, Rufus, 292. 

Knight, J. H., 297. 

Knowlton, Jas. H., 223, 230, 233, 205. 

La Follette, R. M., 298. 

La Fourche, Indian chief. 111. 

La Ilontan, Baron, 88, 106. 

Langlade, Augustin, 111, 137. 

Langlade, Chas., 22, 92, 111, 113, 114, 

115, 116, 117, 118, 126, 127, 137. 
Lapham, Increase A., 15, 16, 314. 
Larrabee, C. H., 295, 297. 
La Salle, Robert Cavelier, 18, 61, 63, 71, 

78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85. 
Lawe, John, 156. 
Leavenworth, Gen., 96. 
Leland, Frank, 293. 
Le Sueur, Pierre, 88. 
Lewis, J. T., 294. 
Lignery, Sieur de, 94, 95. 
Lipcap, Solomon, 159. 
Lockwood, Judge, 159. 
Loomis, A. D., 283. 
Long, John, 130. 
Louvigny, Sieur do, 93, 94. 
Lovell, F. S., 299. 
Loyer, J. B., 160. 
Ludington, Harrison, 283. 
Ludington, Jas., 283. 
Lynde, W. P., 297, 298. 
Lynch, Thos., 298. 
Lyon, W. P., 295, 297. 
McArthur, Arthur, 231. 
McBride, R. P., 293. 
McClellan, Geo. B., 234. 
McCord, M. H., 298. 
McDill, A. S., 298. 
McGinley, Daniel, 293. 
Mclndoe, Walter D., 297. 
McKay, Lieut-Col. W., 14b, 147, 118. 
McKenney, Col. T. L., 161. 
Macy, J. B., 297. 
Magoon, H. S., 298. 
Mallory, J. A., 295. 
Mandeville, Jack, 160. 
Mann, Curtis, 283. 
Mason, Stevens T., 185. 
Marin, Capt. Perriere, 97, 98, 99, 100. 
Marquette, Pere, 25, 63, 65, 68, 70, 71, 

72, 106. 
Marshall, R. D., 295. 
Martin, Morgan L., 188. 
May, Reuben, 295. 
Meeker, Dr. IMoses, 167. 
Menard, Rene, 65, 66. 
Menneville, Marquis de, 184. 
Merriman, C. W., 293. 
Metcalf, W. H., 283. 
Miller. Capt. John, 152. 



Index — Continued. 



321 



Miller, L. M., 298. 

Mills, T. B., 299. 

Minor, E. S., 298. 

Mirandeau, Jean Baptiste, 137, 140. 

Mitchell, Alex., 257, 2S3, 297. 

Mitchell, John L., 295, 297, 298. 

Moore, N. D., 312, 314. 

Morgan, Jas., 295. 

Morgan, Maj., 152. 

Murray, Gen. Jas., 1S4. 

Nattestaad, Ole Knudson, 211. 

Nazro, John, 283. 

Nea-pope, Indian warrior, 173, 174, 178. 

Neill, E. D., 106. 

Newman, A. W., 295. 

Nicolet. Jean, 22, 41, 42, 43. 44, 71, 73, 

74, 75, 76, 77. 
Noble, Wm., 254. 
Olin, John M., 295. 
Orton, H. S., 230, 233, 295. 
Otjen, Thee, 298. 
Paine, Byron, 228, 229, 289, 295. 
Paine, H. E., 297. 
Palmer, H. L., 294, 299. 
Parkinson, Daniel M., 160. 
Pauquette, Indian trader, 112. 139, 140. 
Peck. Geo. W., 294, 295. 
Percival, Jas. G., 210. 
Perkins, Lieut. James., 144, 145, 147. 
Perrot, Nicholas, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, CI, 

62. 
Pfister, Guido, 283. 
Pinney, S. U., 295. 
Plankinton, John, 283. 
Pontiac, Indian chief, 109, 110. 
Porter, Geo. B.. 185. ' 

Potter, John F., 293, 297, 299. 
Pound, T. C, 298. 
Powell, D. F., 295. 
Price, H. H., 298. 
Price, W. T., 297, 298. 
Pritchard, Col., 274, 275. 
Pryor, Roger, 299. 
Quarles, J. V., 297. 
Radisson, Pierre, 24. 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 

137. 
Randall. A. A.. 223. 230, 244. 292, 294. 

296. 
Rankin, Jos.. 298. 
Reaume. Judge Chas., 142. 
Red Bird, Indian chief, J58, 159, 161, 

162, 163, 164. 
Red Thunder, Indian chief, 145. 
Reid. T. B., 293. 
Reid. A. .1., 293- 
Returning Cloud, 33. 
Reymert, J. D., 211. 
Richmond. T. C. 295. 
Ribourde, Gabriel, 84. 



Roberts, Samuel, 130, 131. 

Robinson, Chas. D., 32, 285, 294. 

Robinson, W. W., 293. 

Rolette, Joseph, 146, 153. 

Rounds, Lester, 189. 

Rublee, Horace, 289, 292, 296. 

Rublee, W. A., 293. 

Rusk, Jeremiah, 292, 294, 297, 298, 305, 

309. 
Ryan, E. G., 223, 230, 233, 247, 248, 295. 
Rycraft, John, 230. 
St. Clair, Arthur, 185. 
St. Cosme, Father, 88. 
St. Lusson, 56. 

Salomon, Edward, 245, 249,, 294, 295, 296. 
Sauerhering, Edw., 298. 
Sawyer, Philetus, 289, 295, 296, 297, 298. 
Schilling, Rohert, 305, 306, 308. 
Schurz, Carl, 208, 293. 
Scoheld, Edw., 294. 
Seymour, Chas, 293. 
Shafter, Jas. M., 299. 
Shaw, Geo. B., 298. 
Shaw, John, 163. 
Shelby, Isaac, 145. 
Sherman, Wm. T., 2.>1 
Sholes, C. C, 299. 
Silverthorn, W. C, 295. 
Simcoe. John Graves, 184. 
gmith, Aaron, 201. 
Smith, A. D., 228. 29.^. 
Smith, Campbell, 189. 
Smith, Henry, 298. 
Smith, Hyrum. 199. 
Smith, J. B.. 226. 242. 
Smith, Joseph, 199. 
Smith, Wm. E., 294, 295, 299, 308. 
Sloan, A. Scott, 297. 
Sloan, I. C, 297. 
Snelling, Col., 161. 
Spooner. John C 294, 29.5. 
Somers, P. J., 298. 
Stedman, W. P.. 275. 
Stephenson, Isaac. 298. 
Stewart, Alex., 298. 
Stow, Alexander, 295. 
Strang, James J.. 188. 198. 199. 200, 201. 

202, 203. 204, 205, 206. 
Strong, Moses M., 196, 299. 
Sumner, D. H., 298. 
Spooner, Roger, 293. 
Spooner, Wyman, 299. 
Tallmadge, J. J., 185, 1S8, 294. 
Taylor, David, 295. 
Taylor, W. R., 284. 294, 295. 
Taylor. Zachary, 169, 177, 180, 219, 292. 
Tecumseh, Indian chief, 144. 
Thomas. O. B., 298. 
Thomson, A. M., 299. 



322 



Ftidev — Contintied. 



Thormaehlen, Anton, 251. 
Tomah, Indian chief, 144. 
Tonty, Henry de, 56, 75, 78. 80, 83, 84. 

85. 
Toopunkah Zeze, Indian chief, 157. 
Traeumer, Geo. P.. 308. 
Truesdell, G., 283. 
Tuttle, Hiram, 293. 
Tuttrop, Christ., 295. 
Turner, F. J., 156. 
Turner, A. J., 291. 
Tweedy, J. H., 223, 294. 
Upham, D. A. J., 223, 242, 243, 294. 
Upham, W. H., 294. 
Utley, W. L., 295. 
Van Nostrand, Jas., 201. 
Van Schaick, I. W., 298. 
Vaudreuil, Marquis de, 184. 
Vieau, Jacques, 140. 
Vilas, Wm. F., 291, 292, 295. 297. 
Villiers, Sieur de, 95, 96. 
Vineyard, Jas. R., 188, 196, 197. 
Vogel, Fred, 283. 
Waldo. O. H., 296. 
Walker, Isaac P., 225, 280, 295. 
Walking Turtle, Indian chief, 162. 
Wallber, Albert, 276. 



Walllfier, Emil. 305. 

Washburn, C. C, 283, 289, 294, 296, 297. 

Washington, George, 22, 113, 114. 

Wekau, Indian warrior, 159, 162, 163. 

Wells, D. A., 298. 

Wells, Daniel, 283, 297. 

Wenthworth, Alex., 205. 

West, W. B., 293. 

West, T. S., 276, 277. 

Wheelan, Jirah B., 201. 

Wheeler, Ezra, 297. 

Whistler, Gen., 161. 

Whitcomb, Edw., 201. 

White Cloud, Indian prophet, 173. 

Whitesides, N. E., 299. 

Wliiton, E. v., 230, 295. 

Wight, Lyman, 198. 

Wight, W. W., 239. 

Williams, C. G., 289, 297, 298. 

Williams, Eleazer, ISl, 235, 23r,, 237, 23S. 

239, 240, 241. 
Winans, John, 298. 
Winslow, J. B.. 295. 
Woodward, Gilbert M., 295, 29S. 
Wolfe, Gen., 115. 
Young, Brigham, 200. 



